.  of 
Withdrawn 


THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

DAVIS 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL 


A   LEGEND   OF   THE   SIERRA   NEVADA 


MISCELLANEOUS  VERSE 


,   MILES  I'ANSON 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY   HARRY   FENN 

AND    OTHERS 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW   YORK  LONDON 

27    WEST   TWENTY-THIRD    ST.        27    KING   WILLIAM    ST.,    STRAND 

®fje  ^nichtrbocker  |)ress 
1891 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1891 

BY 
MILES  I'ANSON 


ttbe  ftntcfcerbocfter  ffress,  "Hew 

Electrotyped,  Printed,  and  Bound  by 
G.  P.  Putnanv's  Sons 


INTRODUCTION. 


To  my  fellow-miners  of  California  and  the  Pacific 
Coast  I  inscribe  this  little  book  of  verse,  in  memory 
of  Auld  Lang  Syne  and  the  land  that  hath  so  glamoured 
us  ;  for  though  the  themes  herein  are  few  that  touch 
your  peculiar  life  and  environment,  they  were  born  of 
the  high  Sierras,  and  the  desert  solitudes  near  and  far, 
during  the  arduous  years  and  lonely  hours  of  a  gold- 
seeker's  life. 

Not  in  self-confidence,  however,  does  the  writer  present 
these  desultory  utterances  to  you,  but  conscious  how  lit 
tle  of  worth  there  is  here  to  warrant  the  offering, — how 
little  indeed  of  aught  to  portray  such  an  experience  and 
communion  with  Nature. 

The  writer  has  no  thought  of  touching  any  popular 
chord  in  these  conceits,  nor  hope  beyond  pleasing  a  few 
here  and  there  ;  and  so, 

"  With  a  heart  for  any  fate  " — 

as  befits  the  Prospector — whatever  of  adverse  judgment 
or  of  failure  may  greet  this  venture,  will  fall  lightly  upon 
him,  as  upon  one  inured  to  long-familiar  loads. 

THE  AUTHOR. 
NEWARK,  NEW  JERSEY, 
June,  1891. 

iii 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

THE    VISION    OF    MISERY     HILL            .                         .            .  I 

REFLECTIONS   ON    A     FOSSIL     SHELL            ...  34 

WHERE    ALICF    IS     .             .            .            ...            .  45 

THE    RAINY    SEASON 47 

LOVE'S   PRESAGE       .            .             .                         .            .            .  50 

TO    ANE    THE    CYNIC    SOUGHT              .            .            .            .  51 

THE    OWL 54 

MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM 56 

A  VERNAL   INVOCATION          .....  67 

LINES  TO  FLORENCE      .        ...        .        .  68 

COUNSEL  FROM  SOL.  SLOWBOY       .        .        .        .  69 

THE  DEVIL'S  WELL 74 

INGERSOLL     ........  88 

FLIGHT  BEYOND  FAITH          .....  89 

DOUBT 90 

THE    CREED    OF    HOPE 91 

THE    GOSPEL    O*  GAMMON           .....  97 

V 


yi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

PROGRESS— LIBERTY — DELUSION      .  .  .  .  IO2 

HER   DAYS    OF    JOY              .  .  .  107 

FRANK    FORESTER  .  .  .  109 

ENCHANTMENT         .            .            .            .  .  .  .  Ill 

IN    ALTAS   SIERRAS             .         .  .            .  .  .  I  12 

THE    FINAL    REBELLION               .            .  .  .  .  1 19 

IN    MEMORIAM— CAPTAIN  WEBB        .  .  .  .  126 

UTTERANCE   OF    THE    DESERT           ,  .  .       •     ;  131 

THE   ETERNAL    SIEGE       *           .    •  .  133 

ON    HEARING    A   DESERT    SONG-BIRD  .  .     •       .  14° 

HIS   EPITAPH TOM    BLOSSOM    OF    ARIZONA  .  .  142 

NIGHT-FALL    ON    THE    YUBA    .            .  -.  .  .  144 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

2 


"  HE    SPEEDS    O'ER    REALMS    THAT    SEEM    ACCURST  "          76 
"A    STRANGER    AT    THE    DEVIL'S   WELL*'  .  .          84 

"HOW    RANG    OUR    JOYFUL    PEAL".  .  .  .114 

NIGHT-FALL    ON    THE    YUBA..  .  .  144 


THE    VISION   OF   MISERY   HILL: 

A  LEGEND  OF  PIKE  CITY,  IN  THE  SIERRA.  NEVADA.    ^ 

*    •••»••  *••'  '•  . 


PART    I. 


Tom  Bowers  mined  on  Misery  Hill, 
All  round  it  and  across  it, — 

Pursued  for  years  with  stubborn  will 
His  theories  of  deposit. 

Tom's  mind  was  fashion'd  in  the  mould 

Of  positive  conviction, 
That  clutch'd  belief  with  rigid  hold, 

And  scouted  contradiction. 

His  mission  was  (he  had  no  doubt) 

To  trace  the  primal  sources 
Of  all  the  gold  once  mined  about 

The  flats  and  water-courses : 


2  THE  VISION   OF  MISERY  HILL. 

And  though  the  gold  he  gathered  there 

Was  hardly  worth  the  gaining, 
"  Whar  this  kem  from"-— thus  reason'd  Tom- 

"  Thar  must  be  more  remaining." 

And  so  he  tunnell'd  and  he  sluiced, 
He  ditched  and  delved  and  drifted, 

Till;  ':a-ll'.  'the  ground:  for  acres  round 
Was  fairly  search 'd  and  sifted  ; 

Till  all  the  gulches  and  the  slopes 
With  prospect-holes  were  pitted, — 

Sad  graves,  alas,  of  cherish'd  hopes 
That  one  by  one  had  flitted ! 

But  tho'  his  work  so  futile  seemed, 

None  knew  his  faith  to  falter ; 
The  miner  tribe  might  jeer  and  gibe^ 

His  views  they  ne'er  could  alter. 

The  miner  tribe  might  jeer  and  gibe, — • 

He  held  the  tribe  mistaken  ; 
The  hidden  lode  was  real  to  him 

As  daily  beans  and  bacon. 


TOM  BOWERS  MINED  ON  MISERY  HILL 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

Thus  faith,  tho7  but  a  dream,  is  blest 

To  all  who  toil  or  suffer  ; 
Such  faith,  I  hold,  is  more  than  gold, 

And  all  that  wealth  can  offer. 

And  so  in  many  a  lone  ravine 
Far  lost  to  human  neighbors, 

Self -banished  to  his  solitude 

Some  digger  lives  and  labors ; — 

The  gnome  of  certain  hills  or  streams 

Renowned  in  golden  annals, 
That  seeks,  in  monomaniac  dreams, 

His  hidden  veins  and  channels. 

So,  cabin'd  on  a  lone  divide 
Between  the  creek  and  canyon, 

Tom  lived  and  wrought,  nor  ever  sought 
A  partner  or  companion  ; 

Nor  yearned  he  for  the  outer  world, 

Its  busy  strife  and  clamor ; 
This  vagrant  independent  life 

Had  spell'd  him  with  its  glamour, 


THE    VISION  OF  MISER  V  HILL. 

And  love  of  nature. — Thus  he  grew 

A  man  of  lonely  habit, 
That  all  the  secret  coverts  knew 

Of  grizzly,  grouse,  and  rabbit. 

But  ne'er  a  thing  on  foot  or  wing 
Had  cause  to  flee  or  fear  him ; 

The  friendly  quail  beset  his  trail, 
The  chipmonk  gambol'd  near  him. 

His  presence  frighted  not  the  hare, 
Nor  stopt  the  grouse's  drumming ; 

The  shyest  creature  lurking  there 
Scarce  startled  at  his  coming ; 

Thus  bold  by  frequence  of  his  step,— 
His  coming  and  his  going  ; 

Or  theirs  some  finer  sense,  mayhap, 
To  know  beyond  our  knowing  : 

For  peradventure  every  soul 

Hath  some  distinctive  essence, — 

Some  fine,  far-reaching  aureole 
Of  good  or  evil  presence, 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

Impalpable  to  grosser  sense, 

And  visual  cognition, 
That  wakes  with  subtle  influence 

The  watch-dog — Intuition. 

And  so  he  lived  through  fleeting  years, 

Of  worldly  life  unwitting, 
With  phantom  hope  still  beckoning, 

With  fortune  ever  flitting  ; 

With  few  to  know  and  none  to  share 
His  daily  hopes  and  sorrows, 

Till  time  and  toil  had  blanch'd  his  hair, 
And  ploughed  his  face  with  furrows. 

Time  was,  when  to  this  plodding  gnome 
Came  missives  sad  and  tender, 

With  news  of  far-off  friends  and  home, 
And  tokens  of  the  sender  : 

These  urged  him  back  to  ties  of  old, 
To  love  grown  weary-hearted  ; 

And  their  cessation  sadly  told 
Of  hope  or  life  departed ; 


THE   VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

For  many  a  year  had  joined  the  past 
Since  loving  heart  had  spoken  ; 

Neglect  had  conquer'd  faith  at  last, — 
The  final  link  was  broken  ! 

O  !  you  who  wander  far  a- west 

With  high  ambition  burning- 
Remember  aye  the  loving  breast 
That  pines  for  your  returning  ! 

Wait  not  the  prize  ye  may  attain 
On  some  too-late  to-morrow,— 

Gro  now,  and  cheer  that  heart  again, 
Ere  life  is  closed  in  sorrow  ! 

Though  ties  were  sunder'd,  home  resigned 

For  this  lone  sanctuary, 
Tom  was  no  hater  of  his  kind, 

No  cynic  solitary ; 

But  promptly  as  the  Sunday  came 

He  ceased  his  usual  labors,— 
Left  solitude  and  issued  thence 

To  meet  his  mining  neighbors. 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  J 

He  donn'd  his  better  clothes  that  day; 

He  baked  and  washed  and  mended, 
And  to  "  The  Camp  "  some  miles  away 

O'er  hill  and  canyon  wended, 

To  take  a  social  glass  or  two, 

To  bandy  joke  and  query, 
And  ask  of  aught  discovered  new, 

And  air  his  ancient  the'ry 

About  the  "  lead  "  of  Misery  Hill,— 
Show  where  old  Jenkins  struck  it, 

And  where  he  VI  find  the  channel  still, 
With  nuggets  by  the  bucket. 

And  warming  to  his  theme — perhaps 
Misled  with  mock  attention — 

Chalked  on  the  floor  impromptu  maps 
To  aid  their  comprehension. 

Then  some  would  wink  and  say,  "  I  pass  !  " 

Some  gibe  him,  rudely  jolly, 
While  others  roared,  with  lifted  glass  : 

"  Here  's  luck  to  Bowers'  Folly  !  " 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

Tom  wisely  took  but  little  heed 
Of  such  good-natured  banter  ; 

He  knew  their  worst  of  word  and  deed 
Was  born  of  the  decanter. 

Yet,  on  occasion,  held  his  ground 
Against  some  trenchant  joker  ; 

Mayhap  made  answer — pointing  round 
The  bar  and  games  of  poker  : 

"  Well,  boys,  some  folks  air  out  o'  plumb, 
And  p'raps  my  head  aint  level ; 

But  what  's  the  end  o1  keerds  an'  rum  I— 
The  boneyard  and  the  devil !  " 

So  passed  the  years  with  little  change 
Or  luck  for  Tom's  behoovement ; 

But  punctual  in  his  narrow  range 
As  planetary  movement, 

He  kept  his  even-gaited  way, 

Still  full  of  hope  and  vigor, 
Till  one  tempestuous  winter  day 

The  gaunt  familiar  figure 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  Q 

Came  not  to  camp,  and  wonder  grew 
To  know  what  hap  delayed  him  ; 

Snow  blocked  the  trail  and  fierce  the  gale, 
But  this  had  never  stayed  him. 

And  when  the  morrow  brought  him  not, 

Nor  yet  the  day  succeeding, 
Ten  men  of  brawn,  next  day  at  dawn, 

With  stout  Jim  Brandon  leading, 

Broke  trail  through  drifting  snows  across 

The  wintry  desolation, 
O'er  rugged  steep  and  canyon  deep 

To  Tom's  loue  habitation ; 

Where  he,  the  guest  of  solitude, 
Had  dwelt  full  many  a  winter ; 

Whence  issued  now  no  welcome  smoke, 
No  voice  to  bid  them  enter. 

The  hearth  was  cold,  and  knew  no  more 
The  back-log  brightly  burning ; 

An  outward  track  led  from  the  door, 
But  there  was  none  returning  ! 


10  THE   VISION   OF  MISERY  HILL. 

And  save  his  cat,  that  greeted  them 
With  mews  and  wistful  purring, 

No  sign  of  life  was  round  the  place, 
Nor  other  creature  stirring. 

So  thence  the  moody  cavalcade 
The  trail  and  footprints  followed ; 

And  mocking  winds  sole  answer  made 
Whene'er  they  paused  and  hallo'd. 

And  fierce  the  wintry  tempest  blew ; 

The  rugged  way  grew  steeper  ; 
The  guiding  traces  fainter  grew 

In  snow-drifts  gath'ring  deeper; 

While  oft  with  vibrant  shock  and  sound, 

Like  mountains  rent  asunder, 
Some  giant  pine,  hurl'd  earthward,  drown'd 

The  canyon's  muffled  thunder. 

And  grimmer  lines  marked  every  face 
With  deeper  doubting,  fearing, 

As  grew' the  thought  that  he  they  sought 
Was  past  all  help  and  hearing. 


THE   VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  II 

Then  up  the  slopes  of  Grizzly  Run, 
And  thence  by  Deadwood  Hollow 

To  Misery  Hill  they  toiled,  and  still 
The  trail  was  plain  to  follow; 

Till  up  a  deep  and  narrow  cleft 
Where  beetling  banks  impended, 

There  led  the  track,  and  then,  alack  ! 
All  trace  abruptly  ended  ! 

For  there  where  Tom  had  lately  toiled, 
The  treach'rous  bank  had  slidden  ; 

And  well  they  knew  what  there  from  view 
That  merciless  mass  had  hidden  ! 

And  all  stood  silent  and  aghast,- — 
Each  face  the  story  speaking  ;— 

Poor  Tom  had  struck  the  "lead  "  at  last 
Beyond  all  earthly  seeking  ! 

Then  tenderly  and  tearfully 

Those  rugged  men  exhumed  him  ; 

And  tenderly  and  carefully 

Thence  bore  him  and  entouib'd  him, 


12  THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

Upon  a  little  bed-rock  knoll 
Beneath  the  waving  spruces, 

To  dream  no  more  of  fabulous  ore, 
Of  channels,  drifts,  and  sluices. 


PART    II. 

Thenceforth  for  years  the  Bowers  Claim 
Was  neither  worked  nor  wanted ; 

Tom's  diggings  had  an  evil  name  ; 
Some  vowed  the  Hill  was  haunted. 

Nay,  one  who  cross'd  the  Hill  at  night- 
Belated  in  the  murk  there — 

Swore  roundly  that  he  saw  a  light, 
And  heard  Old  Tom  at  work  there ! 

But  others  jeered  and  ridiculed 
This  tale  of  things  uncanny  ; 

Declared  him  fuddled  or  befool'd, 
And  branded  him  "  A  granny." 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  13 

Howbeit,  miners  shunn'd  the  ground 

As  worthless  or  ill-fated, 
And  so  for  many  a  season  round 

'T  was  bann'd  and  unlocated. 

But  passing  years  brought  certain  change, 
And  paying  claims  grew  fewer : 

Prospecting  took  a  wider  range  ; 
Old  claims  were  left  for  newer : 

And  so  it  happ'd  that  once  again 
The  ghostly  Hill  should  waken 

From  deathful  trance  that  one,  perchance, 
Might  earn  his  beans  and  bacon. 

Jim  Brandon,  thriftless  as  of  yore, 

And  now  a  chronic  debtor, 
Forsook  the  claim  that  paid  no  more, 

And,  delving  'round  for  better, 

Strayed  o'er  the  trail  to  Misery  Hill, 

One  drowsy  day  in  summer ; 
Sat  on  the  banks  and  mused  awhile 

In  retrospective  humor ; 


14  THE   VISION   OF  MISERY  HILL. 

Viewed  all  the  work  of  fruitless  years, — 
Tom's  sluiceways,  shafts,  and  ditches, — 

The  fatal  cave  and  sudden  grave 
That  closed  his  dream  of  riches ; 

And  o'er  the  acres  ravaged  there 

By  that  assiduous  toiler, 
Beheld  how  Nature's  kindly  care 

Had  followed  the  despoiler, 

To  hide  and  heal  each  grievous  wound 

By  pick  and  torrent  riven ; 
To  fill  the  shafts  and  cave  the  drifts 

His  hands  had  vainly  driven. 

Young  pines  and  firs  in  vernal  ranks 

The  naked  bed-rock  shaded ; 
The  creeping  chick  weed  draped  the  banks 

And  all  the  cuts  invaded ; 

And  many  a  slope  of  soil  bereft, 

New  vegetation  nourished : 
The  spruce  grew  there  and  everywhere 

The  manzanita  flourished. 


THE  VISION 'OF  MISERY  HILL.  I 

Jim  thought — This  ground  is  very  poor, 
No  doubt ;  but  why  pass  by  it 

Like  other  fools  ? — He  had  the  tools, 
And  so  resolved  to  try  it. 

He  tested  well  the  likely  ground, 

And  in  the  bottom  gravel 
Of  Tom's  last  cut  a  prospect  found, 

Which,  past  all  doubt  or  cavil, 

Would  yield  him  half  an  ounce  a  day, — 
" Leastwise,"  he  mused,  "it  oughter  "  ; 

So  clear'd  for  use  the  cumber'd  sluice, 
And  dug  a  ditch  for  water. 

And  things  went  better  soon  with  Jim ; 

He  paid  his  debts,  grew  jolly, 
And  laugh'd  with  those  who  christen'd  him 

"The  Heir  to  Bowers'  Folly." 

But  tho'  so  free  and,  as  a  rule, 

Good-natured  and  compliant, 
Who  wrong'd  or  play'd  him  for  a  fool 

Might  'rouse  an  angry  giant. 


1 6  THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

And  so  it  proved — for  Jim  of  late 
Much  temper  had  been  showing 

Against  some  wight  who,  in  the  night, 
Had  set  the  water  flowing 

Through  every  sluice  on  Misery  Hill, 
And  which  despite  plain  warning 

How  he  might  fare  who  trespassed  there, 
Was  running  every  morning. 

And  when  much  bolder  trespass  still 

Upon  the  claim  he  noted, 
His  words,  I  wot,  grew  strong  and  hot, 

And  cannot  here  be  quoted. 

A  joke  's  a  joke,  thought  Jim,  but  this 
Was  pushed  beyond  all  warrant ; 

And  whether  done  in  spite  or  fun 
Not  yet  to  him  apparent. 

And  vain  his  search  in  track  or  clue 

To  find  the  raider  hinted, 
For,  save  his  own,  no  foot  was  shown 

Upon  the  Hill  imprinted. 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  IJ 

Then,  as  the  rogue  so  deftly  came, 
Shunu'd  daylight,  and  was  wary, 

Jim  made  resolve  to  watch  the  claim 
All  night,  if  necessary. 

So,  broaching  to  his  cabin-chum — 

Doc  Sanders — his  intention, 
"With  caution  to  keep  strictly  mum, 

Nor  give  it  hint  or  mention 

To  any  soul  in  camp  or  town, — 
Not  e'en  to  boon  companions, — 

He  took  his  trusty  rifle  down 
And  slipped  across  the  canyons, 

By  devious  ways  and  round  about, 
To  trap  the  rogue  that  trickt  him, 

And  stealthy  as  a  Pawnee  scout 
Who  would  surprise  his  victim. 

Jim's  courage  had  been  often  tried ; 

He  faltered  at  no  trifle ; 
No  man  more  quick  with  axe  or  pick, 

None  handier  with  the  rifle. 


1 8  THE   VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

All  ghostly  tales  to  him  were  jokes, 
And  spirits  sheer  delusion  ;— 

"  They  '11  do  fer  fools  and  women-folks,7' 
Was  Jim's  concise  conclusion. 

Too  full  of  strife  his  nomad  life, 
Too  hedged  with  hard  conditions, 

For  metaphysics  or  the  sway 
Of  ancient  superstitions ; 

All  he  had  ever  chance  to  learn 

Was  rude  and  necessary ; 
And  "  his  "  was  kis'n,  "  hers  "  was  hern, 

In  Jim's  vocabulary. 

And  so  he  strode  to  Misery  Hill, 
With  hope  intenser  growing 

To  catch  the  wight  that  every  night 
Had  set  the  water  flowing. 

But  as  one  stalking  wary  game 
May  neither  haste  nor  loiter, 

So  travell'd  he,  till  near  the  claim, 
Then  paused  to  reconnoitre, 


THE  VISION   OF  MISERY  HILL.  19 

* 

And  saw — or  was  't  a  trick  of  sight  ? — 

A  strange,  uncertain  glimmer 
Upon  the  Hill, — a  lambent  light, 

Now  brighten,  now  grow  dimmer; — 

Such  gleam  as  night  on  tropic  seas 
Shows  in  each  wave  upturning ; 

Such  light  as  lives  in  mouldering  trees, 
Or  glowworm  bluely  burning. 

The  nearer  hills  lay  in  eclipse 
Beneath  the  mountain  masses ; 

Beyond,  the  white  Sierra  tips 
Shone  o'er  the  shadow VI  passes. 

He  heard  within  the  tamaracks 
The  night-wind's  eerie  crooning  ; 

From  bars  and  falls  at  intervals 
The  Yuba's  deep  bassoouing. 

And  every  pine  grew  full  of  moan  ; 

The  moon  was  in  the  crescent ; 
A  "  Notice  "  on  a  hemlock  shown 

In  letters  phosphorescent. 


20  THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

at 

"  A  mining  notice  ! — ^Umph,"  growl'd  Jim, 
"  He  wants  a  little  fun  here ; — 

He  '11  get  it  "  (and  his  face  grew  grim) 
"  Before  Jim  Brandon 's  done  here  !  " 

With  bated  breath  he  read  the  name 

In  lambent  letters  shining : 
"  I,  Thomas  Bowers,  hereby  claim 

This  ground  for  placer  mining  !  " 

Then  dash'd  his  hand  in  sudden  ire 
To  rend  the  lie  there  written  ; — 

His  hand  fell  from  the  words  of  fire 
As  if  with  palsy  smitten  ! 

For  this,  in  sooth,  was  something  weird, — 
A  sense  of  fear  flash'd  o'er  him  ; 

The  mystic  words  had  disappeared, — 
The  tree  stood  blank  before  him  ! 

"  A  trick  !  "  he  muttered  through  his  teeth, 
As  o'er  the  brushwood  striding 

He  sought  around,  above,  beneath, 
To  find  the  culprit  hiding ; 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  21 

But  nothing  living  found  or  heard, 

Save  here  and  there  a  cricket, 
Or  barking  fox,  or  frightened  bird 

That  fluttered  in  the  thicket ; 

Or  haply,  from  his  lonely  height 

On  pine-tree's  lofty  column, 
An  owl  awoke  the  drowsy  night 

With  utterance  deep  and  solemn. 

Then  o'er  the  hill  Jim  crept  alert, 

No  sound  or  sign  discerning 
Of  him  he  sought,  but  overwrought 

With  futile,  passionate  yearning, 

Beat  every  covert  far  around, 
Through  every  thicket  peering, 

Until  again  the  higher  ground 
And  mystic  hemlock  n earing — 

Was  't  fancy  ?  or  the  rising  wind 
Through  forest  branches  blowing  ? 

That  surely  meant  to  ears  attent 
The  sound  of  water  flowing  ! 


22  THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

And  lo,  again  in  lines  of  flame 
Upon  the  tree  was  shining,— 

"  I,  Thomas  Bowers,  hereby  claim 
This  ground  for  placer  mining  !  " 

Then  while  he  stood  with  list'ning  ear 

The  mystery  to  unravel, 
Up  from  the  cut  came  sharp  and  clear 

A  pick-stroke  in  the  gravel. 

Ay,  there  again  ! — his  breath  came  quick  ; 

So  !  there  the  scamp  was  lurking  ! 
The  rushing  sluice  and  ringing  pick 

Proclaimed  a  miner  working  ! 

As  nimbly  as  a  catamount 

Jim  crouch'd  to  watch  and  listen ; 

You  might  have  seen  the  savage  sheen 
Within  his  eyeballs  glisten  ! 

Then  to  the  bank  edge,  creeping  slow, 
And  through  the  brackens  gazing, 

He  something  saw  that  changed  to  awe 
The  wrath  within  him  blazing. 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  2$ 

An  eerie  shape — too  grim  and  lank 

To  be  a  living  creature's— 
Full  in  the  moon  beneath  the  bank 

Upturned  its  ghastly  features ; 

Moved  lips  that  uttered  not  a  sound, 

And  raised  a  warning  finger  ; 
Jim  fain  had  fled,  but  sudden  dread 

Impell'd  him  there  to  linger. 

Was  this  a  phantom  of  the  cup  ? 

A  dreamer's  horrent  vision  ? 
Nay,  fancy  never  conjured  up 

So  real  an  apparition  ! 

Too  well  he  knew  that  grizzly  beard, 

That  visage  wan  and  shrunken, 
Those  eyes  that  flamed  with  lustre  weird 

From  sockets  deeply  sunken ! 

But  while  he  gazed,  transfixed  and  dazed, 

Upon  the  phantom  figure, 
His  finger  half  instinctively 

Reach'd  out  and  touch'd  the  trigger. 


24  THE  VISION  Ob  MISER  Y  HILL. 

The  hammer  fell  .     .     .  there  came  a  yell 
That  sent  a  spasm  through  him ! 

And  from  the  gulf  the  spectre  sprang 
With  pick  and  shovel  to  him  ! 

He  tarried  not,  but  fled  the  spot 
Where  all  was  now  unravell'd  ; 

His  iron-shodden  miner  shoes 
Struck  fire  as  fast  he  travell'd. 

He  bounded  lithely,  wing'd  with  fear ; 

His  legs  were  ne'er  so  limber ; 
He  cleared  the  ditches  like  a  deer, 

He  leapt  the  fallen  timber ; 

And  round  the  echoing  rim  of  night 

His  hasty  steps  resounded  ; 
Three  hollow  clanks  rang  on  the  planks 

As  o'er  a  bridge  he  bounded. 

Then  down  the  ridge  to  Bloody  Gulch 
He  madly  dash'd  and  doubled, 

Plunging  with  mighty  strides  across 
Its  torrent  red  and  troubled ; 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  2$ 

And  up  the  hill  where  Burke's  old  mill 

Stood  naked,  roof  and  rafter, 
Wherefrom  a  startled  owlet  shrillM 

His  wild,  hysteric  laughter,— 

That  seemed  an  impish  hue  and  cry 

To  Jim's  excited  fancy ; 
And  things  he  knew  so  strangely  grew, 

By  some  dread  necromancy, 

That  every  stump  within  his  path 
Eose  gorgon-like  to  hound  him, 

And  ancient  oaks  in  ghostly  wrath 
Waved  arms  and  gibber' d  round  him. 

Solve  you  the  riddle  why  this  man 

Should  flee  in  coward  panic, 
Who  scarce  had  thought  or  fear  of  aught 

Celestial  or  satanic ; — 

This  nomad,  trained  in  border  war, — 

A  desperado  branded, 
Who  track'd  the  grizzly  to  his  lair, 

And  slew  him  single-handed. 


26  THE   VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

But  thus  he  sped  in  nameless  dread, 
How  fast  it  little  mattered, 

For  close  arear  the  thing  of  fear 
With  pick  and  shovel  clatter'd. 

At  last  the  camp  lights  came  to  view 
As,  every  sinew  straining, 

O'er  Hoyt  Divide  he  madly  fled, 
New  strength  and  courage  gaining. 

But  ah  ! — just  where  his  shadow  fell, 
Shown  by  the  moonlight  clearer, 

A  hand  he  saw  stretch'd  like  a  claw 
That  nearer  drew  and  nearer ! 


PART    III. 

It  was  a  gala  night  in  "  Pike,'1 — 
A  night  of  rout  and  revel ; 

The  "  Dandy  Jim  "  had  made  a  strike 
Upon  the  second  level. 


"  A  HAND  HE  SAW  STRETCH'D  LIKE  A  CLAW  " 


:V     ,  V  :  :»*:  •..* 


THE   VISION   OF  MISERY  HILL.  2/ 

Success  had  crowned  the  "  Nip-and-tuck," — 

The  claim  was  now  "  a  daisy  "  ; 
And  Gopher  Sain  had  struck  a  vein 

That  set  The  Camp  half  crazy. 

In  Jimson's  Tamarack  saloon 

The  jubilation  centr'd, 
And  from  its  door  a  mighty  roar — 

"When  later  comers  entered— 

Shot  forth  a  sudden  bolt  of  sound, 

That  smote  with  mocking  riot 
The  calm,  majestic  hills  around, 

The  night's  impressive  quiet. 

Such  strife  within  !  such  peace  without ! 

O  man,  thou  errant  creature — 
The  solemn  hills  return  thy  shout, 

And  bid  thee  back  to  Nature  ! 

So  pure  without !  so  foul  within  ! 

And  ever  the  air  grew  thicker, 
And  louder  rose  the  frantic  din 

As  flowed  the  fiery  liquor. 


28  THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

For  there  the  roystering  revellers — 
That  all  the  week  had  fasted 

From  drink  and  play — had  come  to  stay 
While  gold  or  credit  lasted  ; — 

Had  come  from  hills  and  river-bars, 
From  lone  ravines  and  gorges, — 

A  hungry  throng  for  dance  and  song, 
And  bacchanalian  orgies. 

And  round  the  games  the  circles  grew 
Where  favorite  Poker  spell'd  them, 

Or  Faro's  fascination  drew, 
Or  Spanish  Monte  held  them. 

And  loudly  buzzed  the  miner  clan 
Of  sluicing,  drifting,  ditching ; 

Pete  had  a  dollar  to  the  pan ; 

Dick's  bed-rock  now  was  "  pitching  "  ; 

Tom  Blossom  still  was  "  off  the  lead," 
And  barely  earned  his  rations, 

But  yet,  "  by  dad,"  he  swore,  he  had 
"  The  best  of  indications." 


THE   VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  2$ 

Ay,  it  was  ever  thus  with  Tom, — 
And  all  his  comrades  knew  it, — 

He  saw  the  prize  before  his  eyes 
But  never  quite  got  to  it  ! 

And  thousands  fight  with  fate,  alas, 

As  luckless  as  poor  Tom  is ! 
Whose  lives  are  blossom  full,  but  pass 

Unknowing  the  fruit  of  promise  ! 

A  troupe  of  dancing-girls  that  late 

The  Diggings  had  invaded, 
Each  with  a  graceless  miner  mate 

Now  waltzed  and  gallopaded ; 

And  up  and  down  the  bar-room  whirl'd 
The  rough,  good-natured  diggers, 

While  one  forlorn  flutina  skirl'd 
The  tunes  and  timed  the  figures. 

But  where  was  Jim — Jim  Brandon  ? — he 
Whose  welcome  aye  was  hearty 

At  spree  or  dance,  and  ne'er  by  chance 
Had  been  an  absent  party  ? 


30  THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

The  question  'rose  and  oft  recurr'd 

Between  the  games  and  dances, 
Till  much  opinion  had  been  heard 

And  each  had  aired  his  fancies ; 

Till  o'er  Jim's  absence,  and  his  claim, 

A  few  grew  loud  and  heated, 
When,  from  a  quiet  poker  game 

Where  he  had  long  been  seated, 

Doc  Sanders  rose,  with  glass  in  hand : 
"  Sho,  boys  !— (hie)— let  's  be  jolly  !— 

Whar's  Jim? — well  (hie)  here's  luck  to  him!- 
He  's — gone  to — Bowers'  Folly  !  " 

The  words  he  said  had  barely  sped 

When,  hark !  a  fearful  clatter 
Brought  every  reveller  to  his  feet 

To  question — What 's  the  matter  ? 

A  crash  of  tools,  a  shout,  a  thud 

As  of  a  body  falling, 
A  yell  that  froze  each  hearer's  blood — - 

So  piercing  and  appalling — 


THE  VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL.  31 

Came  from  without,  and  bold  men  felt 
Their  pulses  strangely  quicken  ; 

And  some,  as  when  the  Banshee  cries, 
Stood  dumb  and  terror-stricken. 

And  for  the  moment  features  flushed 
With  drink  and  play  grew  pallid  ; 

But  some  who  dread  nor  quick  or  dead 
Out  from  the  bar-room  sallied, — 

Like  men  impatient  of  defence 
When  threat'niug  foes  beleaguer, 

Who  raise  the  port  and  madly  thence 
Make  sortie  swift  and  eager; 

These  led  the  wondering  rabble  forth, 

To  find  no  dead  or  dying, 
As  that  dread  cry  might  well  imply, 

But  on  the  roadway  lying, 

Jim  Brandon's  rifle — known  to  all, 

And,  by  the  flaring  candles, 
A  pick  and  shovel,  with  "  T.  B." 

Cut  rudely  in  the  handles ! 


32  THE   VISION  OF  MISERY  HILL. 

What  did  it  mean  ?     Was  this  the  scene 

Of  tragedy  or  juggle  ? 
Some  tracks  were  found  as  if  the  ground 

Were  tramp'd  in  desp'rate  struggle — 

And  nothing  more  !     But  what  of  Jirn  ? 

Nay,  ask  the  sighing  pines  there  ! 
No  trace  was  ever  found  of  him 

Beyond  the  tracks  and  signs  there  ! 


Long  years  have  passed,  and  over  all 
Young  pines  grow  rank  and  vernal ; 

And  still  the  claim  hath  evil  name 
For  sights  and  sounds  nocturnal ; 

And  miners  swear — tho'  buried  there 

Beneath  the  waving  spruces- 
Tom  Bowers  still  holds  Misery  Hill, 
And  nightly  runs  the  sluices. 


33 


REFLECTIONS  ON  A  FOSSIL  SHELL. 


[On  the  lofty  slopes  of  Volcano  Mountain,  in  Esmeralda,  Nevada, 
the  writer  chanced  upon  and  prospected  the  shore-line  of  an  ancient 
sea,  finding  its  argentiferous  shales  poor  in  precious  metal,  but  rife 
with  fossil  life-forms  of  the  Silurian  Age.] 


Here  in  these  dead  and  desert  lands 
Of  Nature's  rudest  moods  and  shapes, 
Of  wrinkled  peaks  and  weather'd  capes 

That  loom  from  seas  of  burning  sands, — 

Where  yet,  as  through  unnumbered  years, 
The  stealthy-footed  Pah  Ute  prowls, 
The  lank  coyote  weirdly  howls 

His  hunger-woes  to  savage  ears,— 

How  puny  seems  this  humanite, 
That  like  a  worm  laborious  creeps 
Upon  the  Vulcan-bo wldered  steeps ! 

See,  far  o'erhead  in  daring  flight — 

34 


REFLECTIONS  ON  A   FOSSIL    SHELL.  35 

As  if  in  utter  scorn  of  him — 

An  eagle  soar ;  and  leagues  below, 
Where  solar  heats  concentr'd  glow 

On  shimmering  mesas  vast  and  dim — 

Look  down  through  airy  gulfs  and  trace 
A  filament  as  finely  spun 
As  spider's  web  shine  in  the  sun. — 

Man's  highest  triumph  over  space, 

Where  he  hath  drawn  the  iron  bands 
O'er  which  his  Van  of  Progress  drives, 
That  bind  in  firm,  fraternal  gyves, 

Far  alien,  antipodean  lands. 

From  rocky  spurs  that  run  athwart 
These  drear  Saharas  of  the  West, — 
Where,  toiling  in  their  madding  quest, 

The  treasure-seekers  grim  and  swart 

Disrupt  the  flinty  strata — lo  ! 

By  hammer-stroke  from  age-long  night 
This  ancient  shell  leapt  into  light 

With  message  of  the  Long  Ago, — 


36  REFLECTIONS  ON  A   FOSSIL   SHELL. 

When  embryonic  life  began, 

That  forth  in  crude  essayings  crept ; 
When  Thought  in  lowly  creatures  slept, 

Ere  waking  to  its  growth  in  Man. 

How  vain,  O  Science,  thy  computes 
Of  Time  since  roar  of  ancient  seas 
Awoke  reverberant  voice  in  these 

Ensealed  and  silent  convolutes  ! 

We  sound  the  Past  with  idle  guess,— 

Reach  o'er  the  gulf  our  yard-stick  gauge  ; 
We  prate  of  Epoch  and  of  Age, 

And  dream  we  mete  the  measureless  ! 

Yet,  while  I  held  within  my  hand 

This  ancient  creature's  crumbling  shell, — 
Behold ! — as  by  some  wizard  spell 

Old  Time's  tenebr'ous  gulf  was  spann'd  ! 

And  I  beheld  a  scene  of  dread, 

To  sentient  being  ne'er  shown  before, — 
The  waste  and  inchoate  world  of  yore 

In  awful  desolation  spread  ! 


REFLECTIONS  ON  A   FOSSIL   SHELL.  37 

Where  o'er  the  dumb,  pre-natal  sleep 
Of  Nature  hung  the  mists  of  morn, 
And  continents  lay  newly  born 

Upon  the  dark,  perturbed  deep. 

No  life  above  the  sombre  seas ; 

Not  yet  a  bird  or  beast — alas  ! 

Not  yet  the  firstling  blade  of  grass 
Was  born  of  Nature's  alchemies ! 

From  zone  to  zone  on  shallow  strands 
I  heard  the  drear  sea-surges  beat ; 
And  through  a  nebulous  winding-sheet 

The  sun  cast  o'er  the  lifeless  lands 

A  weirdly-dim,  penumbral  light, 
As  when  volcanic  forces  shroud 
The  firmament  with  ashen  cloud, 

And  day  seems  glooming  into  night. 

Strange  power  was  mine  ;  at  will  I  pass'd 
Across  the  dreary  seas  and  lands ; 
I  called  aloud  with  lifted  han<Js 

Through  soundless  solitudes,  aghast 


38  REFLECTIONS   ON  A    FOSSIL    SHELL. 

At  my  own  voice,  which  seemed  not  mine, 
But  some  lost  creature's  hopeless  cry ; 
Yet  ne'er  from  pitiless  earth  or  sky 

Came  life's  response  in  sound  or  sign ! 

So  sped  amain  in  sore  affright 

Through  Day's  dim-litten  zones,  and  where 
Tartarean  fires  with  baleful  glare 

Illumin'd  the  sable  breast  of  Night ; 

"Where  raged  in  sulphurous  canopies, 
Dread  storms  of  elemental  war, 
And  never  light  of  moon  or  star, 

Nor  glimmer  of  the  Pleiades 

Proclaimed  the  peopled  firmament ; 
But  muffled  in  her  murky  robe 
Earth  seemed  a  lost  and  wandering  globe, 

Of  starless  space  sole  habitant. 

Still  onward,  urged  by  fear  profound, 
To  blank  horizons  never  past, 
But  ever  opening  void  and  vast 

On  Desolation's  wider  bound  ! 


REFLECTIONS   ON  A    FOSSIL    SHELL.  39 

Where  yet  upon  the  plastic  sphere 
The  shadow  of  the  Maker's  hand 
Seemed  moving,  and  from  sea  and  land 

Reverb'd  His  thunders  to  the  ear  ! 

O  Soul  !  it  were  a  fate  accurst 
To  be  the  last  upon  the  earth  ! 
But  unto  being  of  human  birth 

A  fate  more  dread  to  be  the  first  ! 

To  walk  alone  such  world  as  this, 

Still  lifeless  from  the  gulf  of  space, — 
The  far  forerunner  of  his  race, 

So  near  creation's  genesis  ! 

Thus  ran  my  thought,  and  horror  grew, 
Till  borne  upon  the  sudden  wings 
Grim  Fancy  to  a  dreamer  brings, 

Out  from  that  ancient  world  I  flew 

As  from  a  nightmare's  hideous  thrall, 
With  joyful  cry  to  be  again 
So  near  the  cheery  haunts  of  men 

Upon  my  lofty  mountain  wall ; 


40  REFLECTIONS  OAT  A    FOSSIL    SHELL. 

To  be  within  the  Human  Age, 
And  part  of  that  supernal  plan 
Which  gives  the  ripened  Earth  to  man, 

And  Life's  supremest  heritage. 

How  glorious  seemed  the  earth  and  sky  ! 
It  was  a  blessed  thing  to  see 
A  wrinkled  lizard  near  to  me 

With  keen  cognition  in  his  eye  ! 

And  e'en  the  bristling  cactus,  rife 

With  venom'd  spines,  benignant  grew 
To  soul  so  grateful  to  renew 

The  joyful  fellowship  of  life. 

O  waif  from  Time's  unmeasured  sea  ! 
Are  we  that  question  sky  and  earth, 
With  mighty  hope  of  higher  birth, 

By  some  far  link  allied  to  thee  ? 

Alas  !  are  these  supernal  powers 
The  fruitage  of  some  soulless  germ  ? 
Is  that  which  animates  the  worm 

A  living  force  divine  as  ours  ? 


REFLECTIONS  ON  A   FOSSIL   SHELL.  41 

Creed  answers  nay,  but  Science  saitli 

Dumb  predecessor  such  as  this 

May  type  the  homely  chrysalis 
From  which  such  beauty  blossometh. 

It  better  suits  our  faith  and  pride 
To  hold  that,  nobly-fashioned  thus, 
We  leapt  at  Word  Miraculous 

Divinely-imaged,  God-allied. 

Yet  surely  miracle  as  great 

Marks  every  growth  of  life  and  thought, 
And  all  creative  law  hath  wrought 

From  humble  unto  higher  state. 

Though  fact  with  faith  may  not  align, 
Or  prove  a  fin  became  a  claw, 
The  claw  a  hand,  beneath  the  law, 

Is  this  creation  less  divine  ? 

Nay,  though  these  riper  faculties 
Did  blossom  from  no  finer  dust 
Than  this  poor  waif — yet  shall  we  trust 

That  faiths  are  more  than  phantasies : 


42  REFLECTIONS  OAT  A   FOSSIL   SHELL. 

That  since  one  law  supremely  reigns 

Alike  for  embryo  and  man, 

No  life  is  lost  where  it  began, 
But  ever  moves  to  higher  planes. 

And  if  there  were  no  farther  scope 
For  Him  that  built  this  house  of  lime, 
And  kindred  life,  through  endless  time, 

A  shadow  falls  upon  our  hope  : 

Then  yonder  lights  in  heaven's  abyss 
Are  meteors  in  eternal  gloom, 
And  Being  bears  the  awful  doom — 

Thou  art  this  thing,  and  only  this  ! 

Yea,  all  is  blank,  inscrutable ! 

A  gulf  behind,  a  gulf  before, 

And  Life  is  cast  for  evermore 
In  rigid  mould,  immutable  ! 

What  do  we  peril  if  we  look 

Through  God's  domain  with  microscopes  ? 

Shall  some  dread  Finis  bar  our  hopes 
Who  seek  His  ways  beyond  The  Book  ? 


-• 


REFLECTIONS  ON  A   FOSSIL   SHELL.  43 

Fear  not !  for  every  seeker  knows 
How  vain  the  Ultimate  is  sought, — 
How  vaster  to  the  flight  of  thought 

God's  universe  forever  grows. 

But  whoso  leaves  the  land  before 
He  knows  the  port  to  which  he  sails, 
May  drift  despairing  in  the  gales 

And  restful  harbor  find  no  more  ! 

So,  anchor  by  the  faith  thou  hast, 
Secure  within  thy  placid  pond, 
While  doubters  roam  the  deeps  beyond, 

Or  sink  with  shatter'd  helm  and  mast. 

And  this  mute  witness  of  the  time 

When  Earth  was  creeping  through  the  haze 

Of  newness  to  these  riper  days 
Of  life  and  growth,  and  thought  sublime, 

May  teach  us,  though  his  lips  be  dumb, 
To  trust  in  faith  the  kindly  Power 
That  shaped  us  to  the  present  hour 

And  limns  the  higher  life  to  come ; — 


44  REFLECTIONS  ON  A   FOSSIL    SHELL. 

That  Nature, — working  out  the  v>lan 
Whose  boundaries  we  are  fain  to  set,- 
Works  onward,  not  senescent  yet, 

Nor  all  her  powers  exhaust  in  Man. 

And  while  Polemics  hold  debate 
On  God's  creation, — thus,  or  so, — 
Suffice  it  thou  and  I  to  know — 

Not  how,  but  that  He  Does  Create0 


WHERE  ALICE  IS. 

Come  with  ine,  O  charming  maid, 
To  the  forest's  vernal  shade 

Where  no  strife  or  malice  is, 
And  no  cares  of  life  invade  ; — 

Peace  shall  reign  where  Alice  is  ! 

Come  and  seek  the  Dryad's  home 

In  the  wildwood  trellises  ; 
Or  by  ocean's  roar  and  foam 
Blithely  let  us  live  and  roam ; — 
Joy  shall  reign  where  Alice  is  ! 

Come  where  lilies,  blossoming, 

Lift  their  fragrant  chalices 
To  each  living,  loving  thing 
Pulsing  with  the  life  of  Spring ; 
Love  shall  reign  where  Alice  is  ! 

45 


46  WHERE  ALICE  IS. 

So  like  Elfin  king  and  queen, 
Monarchs  of  a  blest  demesne, 

Throned  in  leafy  palaces 
Love  and  Joy  and  Peace,  I  ween, 

Shall  be  mine  and  Alice's  ! 


THE  RAINY  SEASON. 


In  deeper  shadows  fell  the  gloom 
Within  the  lonely  cabin's  room 

Where  two  old  miners  fared  ; 
One  sat  against  the  chimney  side 
In  silence,  while  the  embers  died, 

And  one  for  sleep  prepared, — 
Still  chattering  blithely  to  his  dumb, 
Disheartened,  melancholy  chum, 
Of  better  days  and  luck  to  come 

With  dawn  of  the  Rainy  Season. 

He  called  his  mate — yet  brooding  there 
Beside  the  hearth's  departing  glare — 

"  Ho,  comrade  !  wake  and  hear 
The  roaring  pines  and  stormy  blast 
Proclaiming  summer  o'er  at  last, 

The  rainy  season  near  ! 

47 


48  THE  RAINY  SEASON. 

The  rain,  the  rain,  the  blessed  rain, 
That  brings  the  harvest  to  the  plain, 
And  yellow  gold  from  gulch  and  vein  : 
Hurrah  for  the  Rainy  Season  ! 

"  Though  grub  be  scant,  and  credit  gone, 
And  claims  have  petered  one  by  one— 

Away  with  doubt  and  fear  ! 
We  Ve  built  the  flume  and  dug  the  ditch  ; 
The  gravel  in  Red  Ravine  is  rich  ; 

And  hark  ! — the  rain  is  here  ! 
The  rain,  the  rain,  the  joyful  rain 
Now  beats  the  cabin  roof  amain 
Till  every  shingle  rings  again : 

Hurrah  for  the  Rainy  Season  ! 

"  Cheer  up  ! — we  '11  strike  the  channel  yet ! 
And  Bill,  old  boy,  you  can't  forget 

Our  ups  and  downs  together, 
Through  many  a  hardship,  many  a  iniss ; — 
But  you — you  never  gave  up  like  this, 

Nor  flinched  at  work  or  weather  ! 


THE  RAINY  SEASON.  49 

And  now  the  rain,  the  bounteous  rain 
Is  pouring  down  on  peak  and  plain, 
Till  ranch  and  mine  rejoice  again  : 
Hurrah  for  the  Kainy  Season  ! 

"  Come,  partner,  shake  your  gloomy  mood, 
Nor  longer  o'er  misfortune  brood, 

But  let  the  past  be  past ; 
D'  ye  hear  the  tempest  shake  the  door  ? 
The  canyon's  rising  waters  roar  ? 

Success  is  near  at  last ! " — 
But  ah  !  he  called  his  mate  in  vain, 
For  Death  had  come  before  the  rain  ! 
And  Bill  would  never  respond  again, 

Nor  toil  in  the  Kainy  Season  ! 

4 


LOVE'S  PRESAGE. 


O  sad-eyed  mother,  dropping  tears 

O'er  cherub  cheek  and  rosy  limb  ! 
Thy  loving  fears  forebode  the  years 

That  reach  remorseless  hands  for  him  ! — 
For  him,  sweet  babe,  that  from  his  nest 

Looks  wonder  at  thy  sadden  grief, 
Nor  dreams  his  rest  upon  thy  breast 

Shall  be,  ah  me,  so  passing  brief  ! 

But  time  will  take,  for  ill  or  good, 

Each  darling  from  the  mother's  knee  ; 
And  soon  thy  bud  of  babyhood 

Must  blossom  to  depart  from  thee  ! 
Yet,  though  he  roam  to  farthest  clime, 

Though  grief  and  shame  his  steps  attend,- 
Though  red  with  crime,  thy  love  sublime 

Will  find  and  fold  him  to  the  end  ! 
50 


TO  ANE  THE  CYNIC  SOUGHT. 

O  thou,  whase  honest  nature  spurns 
The  guilty  wage  that  baseness  earns, 
The  gainful  lie,  the  fat  returns 

O'  fraud  and  wrang, — 
For  thee,  puir  saul,  a  bardie  mourns 

In  heart  and  sang  ! 

Thy  tender  conscience  is  a  gift 
Forbidding  hope  o'  warldly  thrift ; 
Och !  better  thou  wert  sense  bereft, 

Or  black  mischance 
Had  cast  thee,  Pariah-like,  adrift 

On  life's  expanse  ! 

Integrity  's  a  fossil  weed 
To  a'  this  modern  Mammon  greed, — 
A  thing  lang  dead  to  ken  and  need 
Ayont  the  name  : 
51 


52  TO  ANE  THE   CYNIC  SOUGHT. 

The  paukie  tongue  and  pliant  creed 
Are  wealth  and  fame  ! 


Nae  wonner,  friend,  that  hands  recoil 
Frae  sawing  sticks  and  tilling  soil, 
When  ane  wi'  knackit  to  despoil 

A  bank  or  twa, 
May  snap  his  thumbs  at  honest  toil 

For  ance  and  a'  ! 

And  Justice — hoot !  the  venal  minx 
Can  see  as  weel  's  a  hungry  lynx  ! 
Attend  her  coort  when  siller  clinks 

For  Croesus'  sins, 
And  mark  the  hizzie's  nods  and  winks 

While  siller  wins  ! 

But  when  your  paltry  fingers  itch— 
Wee  pilf  ring  rogue  or  famished  wretch- 
Tak  tent ! — she  '11  hound  ye  to  the  ditch 

Whase  theft  a  crust  is  ! 
Gae  steal  a  million,  man,  and  clutch 

The  scales  o'  Justice  ! 


TO  ANE  THE   CYNIC  SOUGHT.  53 

This  life  's  a  game  that  maist  beginners 
Maun  learn  thro'  dool  and  scrimpit  dinners, 
While  sleekit  knaves  the  trumps  and  winners 

Full-handed  haud, 
And  praising  fools  and  fellow-sinners 

Their  tricks  applaud. 

But  thou,  wha  toils  in  honest  ways, 
May  moil  and  hunger  a'  thy  days, 
And  fleech  and  snool  for  bread  an'  claes 

On  supple  knee,— 

wardly  prize  nor  fellow  praise 

For  sic  as  thee  ! 


Yet,  friend,  I  '11  wad  my  aith  upon  '1 
Though  scouted  here  and  pinched  wi'  want — 
There  is  for  thee  a  place  ayont 

Auld  Charon's  beck, 
Where  Peter  waits  to  ca'  thee  saunt, 

And  lift  the  sneck  1 


THE  OWL. 


He  loves  his  lonely  ivied  nook 

Far  up  the  old  gray  wall, 
Whence  his  unlidded  eyes  may  look 

Unseen,  yet  seeing  all  ; 
He  loves  the  moon's  uncanny  light ; 
He  hoots  his  joy  when  starless  night 

Hath  draped  her  dunnest  pall ; 
But  like  a  guilty  soul,  doth  shun 
The  searching  eye  of  noonday  sun  ! 

By  graveyard  paths  and  haunted  ways, 
When  half  the  world  's  asleep, 

He  sees  with  fixed,  unf earful  gaze 
The  shapes  of  evil  creep  ; 

Or  from  his  ancient  oak  espies 

The  fateful  tryst,  the  sacrifice, 
The  lost  that  walk  and  weep : 

54 


THE   OWL.  55 

0  bird,  that  sittest  grim  and  still, 

1  fear  thou  art  colleagued  with  ill ! 

And  thou  dost  typify  to  nie 

His  nature,  stern  and  grim, 
Whose  heart  ne'er  melts  in  sympathy, 

Whose  eyes  no  tears  bedim, ; 
Who  sits  aloof  with  stony  stare 
While  sorrow  darkens  to  despair, 

And  Misery  pleads  to  him  ! 
But  wrapped  in  self,  as  with  a  cowl — 
"  Tu-whit !  tu-hoo  !  " — what  cares  the  owl ! 


MAMMON'S   IN    MEMORIAM. 

AT  THE  CEMETERIES,  "  LONE  MOUNTAIN,"  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


O  strong  young  empire,  marching  free ! 
At  last  by  this  Hesperian  sea, 
The  bivouac-halt  is  blown  for  thee. 

Thy  tents  are  pitched,  thy  march  is  done ; 
Behind  thee  lies  the  guerdon  won ; 
Before,  the  sea  and  setting  sun. 

Here,  where  Pacific's  thunderous  waves 
Kesound  from  headland  cliffs  and  caves — 
Behold  a  hundred  thousand  graves  ! 

The  fallen  of  an  army,  these, 
That  swarmed  from  Earth's  antipodes, 
From  northern  lands  and  tropic  seas ; 
56 


MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM. 

From  every  clime  and  race  enrolled ; — 
An  army  of  the  strong  and  bold, 
Recruited  at  the  cry  of  "  Gold  !  " 

And  lo  !  as  if  by  fairy  planned, 
A  city  crowns  the  hills  of  sand, 
And  fleets  blow  in  from  every  land. 

Here  sweep  the  winds  from  western  zones, 
Fog-laden,  voiceful  with  the  moans 
Of  surges  round  the  Farallones, 

That  landward  run  their  course  of  fate — 
Alas,  like  many  a  soul  elate, 
Here  fallen  at  the  Golden  Gate  ! 

O  sea,  that  blows  such  doleful  breath 
O'er  all  these  acres  sown  with  death  ! — 
What  is  't  thy  sorrowing  spirit  saith  ? 

Sweet  Peace  is  here,  and  Strife  is  dumb ; 
The  turmoils  of  the  city  come 
No  louder  than  the  beetle's  hum; 


58  MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM. 

But  Sorrow  cometh  here  to  shed 
Her  secret  tears,  and  kindly  spread 
Fresh  flowers  above  her  sainted  dead. 

For  her  thy  wild  sea-pipers  blow 
Their  coronachs,  and  loud  and  low 
Sound  every  chord  of  human  woe  ! 

O  realm  of  peace,  and  death,  and  flowers ! 
How  dear  to  thought  in  vagrant  hours 
Thy  labyrinthine  paths  and  bowers  ! 

What  joy,  these  spring-in-winter  days, 
To  flee  the  world's  soul-fettering  ways 
And  dream  within  thy  brambly  maze ! 

To  watch  the  rabbits  play,  and  hear 
The  friendly  quail  afar  and  near, 
From  shadowy  thickets  piping  clear  ! 

Here  let  us  walk,  for  all  the  air 
Is  sweet  with  shrubs ;  exotics  rare 
Their  aromatic  burdens  bear  ; 


MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM.  59 

And  man  and  art  with  nature  vie 
To  mask  with  pleasance  from  the  eye 
The  coffined  host  that  round  us  lie. 

One  coverlet  o'er  all  is  spread 
That  sleep  within  this  common  bed, 
And  class,  and  caste,  and  pride  are  dead ! 

— Are  dead  ?  Kay,  to  the  dead  alone : 
For  Wealth  still  barriers  from  her  own 
The  pauper  and  the  poor  unknown ; 

Still  bans  them  to  the  wastes  and  holes, 
And  proudly  from  her  templed  knolls 
O'erlooks  the  dust  of  common  souls ! 

Here  soars  the  high  memorial  shaft 
To  base  success  and  worldly  craft, 
By  Flattery  duly  epitaphed ; 

And  yonder,  through  acacia  blooms, 
A  regal  mausoleum  looms 
Superbly  o'er  the  stately  tombs, 


60  MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM. 

Bronze-gated  and  with  gilt  aflame. — 
Draw  near,  and  read  what  honored  name 
Great  deeds  have  bruited  into  fame. 

Is  this  the  shrine  of  one  who  fought 
For  others7  weal,  or  nobly  wrought 
To  broaden  human  life  and  thought  ? 

Sleeps  here  some  laurel'd  bard  or  sage  ? 
Some  patriot  heart  that  cast  the  gage 
To  tyrants  and  redeemed  his  age  ? 

Or  one  who,  sceptered  with  the  pen, 
Still  holds  in  deathless  love  and  ken 
His  kingship  o'er  the  minds  of  men  ? 

Nay,  friend,  none  such  !  yet  o'er  this  mould 
The  blazoned  tablet  might  have  told, 
"  Here  lies  a  king — the  king  of  Grold." 

A  king  not  born  to  regal  state, 
But,  sooth,  a  puissant  potentate 
And  arbiter  of  human  fate  ; 


MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM.  6 1 

Whose  glamoured  subjects  madly  ran 

To  serve,  or  trumpet  in  his  van — 

"  Behold,  O  world,  this  self-made  man  ! " 

Whose  dire  Mephistophelian  art 
Taught  multitudes  the  gamester's  part, 
And  snared  them  in  the  gilded  mart ! 

For  well  he  knew  the  ruling  trait— 
This  king  ! — and  how  to  operate 
His  fool-traps  set  with  golden  bait ! 

Alike  to  shrewd  and  simple  showed 
The  road  to  wealth  (a  royal  road  !) 
That  led  through  his  Bonanza  Lode. 

And  thousands  entered,  thousands  fell  ! — 
Alas  !  alas  !  and  proved  it  well — 
The  very  Arch-fiend's  road  to  hell. 

The  loiterers  that  gather  here 
Come  not  to  honor  or  revere, 
Nor  bless  these  ashes  with  a  tear  j 


62  MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM. 

But  to  all  fellow-feeling  lost, 
With  critic  eyes  appraise  the  cost 
Of  shrining  this  ignoble  dust. 

Saith  one  :  "  Here  rests  the  busy  brain 
Of  him  that  plann'd  with  might  and  main, 
Insatiate  still  in  greed  of  gain  ; 

"  Who,  reaping  past  his  utmost  need, 
Gave  back  the  liberal  Earth  no  seed 
Of  fruitful  thought  or  noble  deed ; 

"  Whose  thrift  was  like  the  deadly  blight 

Of  some  portentous  parasite, 

Grown  rank  on  stolen  life  and  light  ! " 

Another  :  "  Ay,  here  Mammon  died 
And  built  his  fane,  wherein  are  pride 
And  sordid  lust  self-glorified  ! 

"  Here  worldly  honors,  thickly  sown 
In  pomp,  and  art,  and  chisel'd  stone, 
Are  his — who  lived  for  self  alone  ; 


MAMMON'S  fJV  MEMORIAM.  63 

"  While  all  around  us  modest  Worth, 
Through  life-long  failure,  dole  and  dearth, 
Returns  unmarked  to  mother  Earth  ! 

"The  wealth  that  shrines  this  worthless  clay 
Might  show  Despair  the  cheerful  day, 
And  flight  the  hunger- wolf  away 

"  From  many  a  wretched  chimney-side 

Where  Penury  sits  hollow-eyed, 

And  famished  mouths  the  crumbs  divide  !  " 

Oh,  shall  a  specious  Latin  phrase 
Forbid  reproach  of  evil  ways, 
And  death  beguile  us  into  praise  ? 

Nay,  let  the  truth  or  nought  be  said  ! 
He  adds  no  honor  to  the  dead 
Who  carves  a  lie  above  his  head  ; 

Else  shall  our  lives  and  graves  attest 
That  honor  lies  in  lucre-quest, 
And  to  be  base  is  to  be  blessed  ! 


64  MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM. 

If  Death's  alembic  purifies 

From  earthly  dross,  and  souls  grown  wise 

Survey  their  past  with  sadden'd  eyes  ; — 

Or,  flitting  from  some  higher  sphere, 

On  loving  missions  hover  near 

To  watch  our  lives,  to  warn  and  cheer, — 

This  soul,  transfigured  from  the  vault, 
Would  bid  the  glozing  chisel  halt 
And  blazon  his  besetting  fault. 

O  dust  of  life  so  desolate  ! 

Nor  sculptured  stone  nor  brazen  gate 

Can  rank  thee  with  the  good  and  great ! 

Nay,  though  thy  pride  and  wealth  out-bid 
The  builder  of  the  pyramid, 
Oblivion  guards  thy  coffin-lid ; 

And  yon  poor  Nameless  wrapped  in  sod, — 
O'er  whom  the  wind-sown  grasses  nod,— 
Is  nearer  unto  man  and  God ! 


MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORTAM.  65 

But  hadst  thou  rightly  understood 
The  bonds  of  human  brotherhood, 
How  blest  thy  life  had  been  for  good  ! 

Not  thine  the  honorable  spoil 
The  useful  arts  may  yield  to  toil 
From  mart  and  workshop,  sea  and  soil : 

O  scorner  of  the  honest  bread  ! — 
Thou,  like  a  bird  that  beaks  the  dead, 
On  human  frailty  grossly  fed  ! 

Thy  arts  robbed  Plenty  of  her  store, 
Drove  Thrift  to  beggary,  nor  forbore 
To  prey  on  Want,  and  grasp  for  more  ! 

Thy  arts  turned  joy  to  hopeless  grief ; 
Made  life-long  probity  a  thief, 
And  mad  self-murder  blest  relief  ! 

So  stands  the  record  ; — read  it,  knaves, 
In  cells  where  dread  unreason  raves  ; 
In  blighted  homes  and  early  graves ! 


66  MAMMON'S  IN  MEMORIAM. 

So  stands  the  record,  deeply  scored 
In  living  hearts  !  And  his  reward  ?— 
This  stone-heap,  and  a  futile  hoard. 

Pause  here,  O  ye  whose  eager  grip 
Lets  not  the  miser'd  treasure  slip 
Till  death  revokes  your  stewardship  ! 

Break,  break  in  life  your  mammon-gyves  ! 
Nor  hope  to  sanctify  base  lives 
With  liberal  gold  when  death  arrives. 

Alas  !  the  late  post-mortem  gift 
Can  never  the  sordid  soul  uplift 
To  earthly  love  or  heavenly  shrift ! 


A  VERNAL  INVOCATION. 


Soar,  skylark,  to  the  azure  dome, 
And  call  the  truants  back  that  roam  ; 

From  southward  groves,  O  bluebird,  hasten ! 
Come,  robin,  unto  thy  northern  home. 

Pour  forth  your  blithest  roundelay, 
O  birds,  to  incense-breathing  May ! 

And  o'er  the  quicken'd  zones  rejoicing, 
Hail  Nature's  new  resurrection  day. 

Now  once  again  the  woodlands  ring 
"With  song,  and  wondrous  blossoming 

From  Winter's  tenebrific  slumber 
Proclaims  the  miracle  of  the  Spring. 

So,  Soul,  when  thy  worn  garment  lies 
In  graveyard  mould,  mayst  thou  arise, 

And  from  the  dust  benignly  blossom 
To  glorious  life  in  heavenly  skies  ! 

67 


LINES  TO  FLORENCE. 


There  comes  with  Summer's  bloom  and  leaf, 
A  joyful  thing  that  gayly  speeds 
On  gorgeous  wings  through  flowery  meads, 

Un vexed  with  care  or  grief  ;— 

A  bright  and  dainty  fugitive 

That  nought  unclean  contaminates, 
Nor  sullied  with  the  lusts  and  hates 

That  mar  the  lives  we  live. 

Be  thine,  dear  child,  such  lot  as  this, — 
Not  idle,  but  as  free  from  care 
As  this  bright  blossom  of  the  air, 

As  sinless  in  thy  bliss  ! 


68 


COUNSEL    FROM   SOL.  SLOWBOY. 


My  plodding  friend,  break  loose  and  send 
Your  treadmill  bonds  to  blazes ! 

Go  kick  your  heels  in  clover  fields, 
And  roll  among  the  daisies ! 

Let  day-books  go  to  Jericho  ! 

De'il  take  the  price  of  tallow  ! 
Yon  grassy  banks  will  rest  your  shanks, 

And  let  your  brain  lie  fallow. 

The  wise  are  they  who  every  day 

Enjoy  life  as  it  passes, 
And  carol  still  through  good  or  ill ; 

The  rest,  I  fear,  are  asses  ! 

Now,  let  us  see — you  're  forty-three, 
And  though  your  eye  still  twinkles, 

Old  Time  and  Care  have  touched  your  hair, 
And  sketched  the  coming  wrinkles. 

69 


/O  COUNSEL   FROM   SOL.  SLOW  BOY. 

'T  is  time  to  rest  from  lucre-quest— 

"  Too  poor  ?  "  nay,  that  's  mere  gammon  ! 

You've  ample  wealth  for  peace  and  health, 
And  moderate  love  of  Mammon. 

"  Your  business  ?  "  —tut !  you  're  in  a  rut 

Worn  deep  in  self-delusion, 
And  year  by  year  trot  round  in  fear 

Of  ruin  and  confusion. 

But  after  you  and  I  are  through 
With  profits,  debts,  and  taxes, 

The  world,  no  doubt,  will  turn  about 
As  usual,  on  its  axis  ; 

And  when  we  're  gone  some  other  one 

Will  do  as  well  as  we  did, — 
For  time  and  Fate,  O  friend,  but  wait 

To  fill  our  shoes  when  needed ! 

"  Your  children  ?  "  —well,  there  's  lazy  Belle, 
Tom  (junior),  Maude,  and  Jerry ;. 

But  why  should  they  have  all  the  play, 
And  you  the  work  and  worry  ? 


COUNSEL   FROM   SOL.  SLOW  BOY,  Jl 

Yet,  day  by  day  you  plod  away, 

Ignoring  soul  and  body. 
While  Belle  (vain  lass !)  is  at  her  glass, 

And  Tom — is  at  his  toddy  ! 

And  thus,  old  friend,  the  shadowed  end 

Appeals  and  bids  you  ponder ! 
Is  't  wise  to  slave  and  scrimp  and  save 

That  idle  heirs  may  squander  ? 

Wealth  got  by  will  is  rife  with  ill- 
Ay,  worse  than  want  to  many  ! 

Make  children  earn,  and  thereby  learn 
The  worth  of  every  penny. 

That 's  why  I  say,  Go  forth  and  play, 

Enjoy  life  while  it  passes, 
Thus  saving  less  for  idleness, 

May  save  your  lads  and  lasses. 

Let  's  look  ahead. — When  you  are  dead 

Then  comes  the  usual  jangle ; 
Unheard-of  heirs  contend  for  shares, 

And  hungry  lawyers  wrangle. 


COUNSEL  FROM  SOL.  SLOWBOY. 

One  wife  we  knew,  nor  dreamed  of  two, 
But  death  brings  strange  surprises, 

And  now,  to  claim  your  honor'd  name — 
Lo,  number  two  arises  ! 

Blackmail,  of  course  !  tho'  something  worse 

Is  hinted — but,  no  matter,— 
Wealth  always  draws  the  hawks  and  daws 

To  peck  the  dead,  and  chatter ! 

Your  intellect  was  doubtless  wrecked, — 

A  fact  more  sad  than  funny  ! 
For  it  is  found  they  're  seldom  sound 

Who  die  and  leave  much  money ! 

And  so  your  will,  though  drawn  with  skill, 

Provokes  a  mighty  rumpus, 
And  experts  swear,  and  courts  declare 

You  clearly  were  non  compos. 

Then,  when  at  last  the  strife  is  past, 

And  wrangling  ends  in  revel, 
Belle  weds  some  fraud  and  goes  abroad, 

And  Tom  goes  to — the  devil ! 


COUNSEL  FROM  SOL.  SLOW  BOY.  73 

And  ere  again  the  summer  rain 
Brings  daisies  to  the  meadow, 

Some  wiser  chap  has  won,  mayhap, 
Your  still  attractive  widow  ! 

And  so  I  say,  Be  wise  to-day, — 

Enjoy  life's  cheery  phases, 
And  carol  still  through  good  or  ill, 

And  roll  among  the  daisies  ! 
L 


THE    DEVIL'S  WELL. 


PRELUDE. 

They  passed  the  threshold  in  their  prime, 
Three  stalwart  sons  were  they, 

That  from  their  lowly  cottage  door 
One  morn  at  break  of  day, 

With  tearful  eyes  but  hopeful  hearts, 
Rode  westward  and  away. 

And  there  were  two  left  desolate 

Within  the  village  lane,— 
A  wretched  pair  that  gazed  adieu 

Through  Sorrow's  blinding  rain, 
And  cried  aloud,  "  God  bless  our  boys, 

And  guide  them  home  again  ! " 

Then  months  grew  into  years,  and  Death 
Came  with  his  summons  stern  : 


74 


THE  DEVIL'S    W 'ELL.  ?$ 

And  one  who  stood  within  the  lane 

Left  one  alone  to  mourn  ; 
And  long  the  widow'd  mother  sighed — 

"  O  sons  of  mine,  return  !  " 


Low  sinks  the  fierce  and  fervent  sun, 
Where  mountains  looming  vast 

On  Arizona's  torrid  plains 
Their  giant  shadows  cast ; 

And  from  a  dark  arroyo's  mouth 
A  horseman  rideth  fast. 

Why  spurs  this  courier  o'er  the  waste 

Thus  at  the  close  of  day, 
With  rifle  poised  and  eye  alert 

As  if  for  sudden  fray  ? 
He  bears  the  Mail  to  lonely  camps 

A  hundred  miles  away. 

But  wherefore  sweeps  his  searching  eye 
The  scene  so  wild  and  drear, — 


76  THE  DEVIL'S  WELL. 

So  silent  all  and  desolate 

The  peace  of  death  seems  here  ? 

Sure,  nought  but  guilt  or  coward  heart 
Could  dream  of  danger  near. 

No  craven  he  :  that  rugged  form 

In  tawny  buckskin  dight, 
Bears  heart  within  as  bold  and  true 

As  e'er  did  ancient  knight ; 
That  hand  the  fierce  Apache  slew 

In  many  a  bloody  fight. 

And  well  he  knows  the  treach'rous  peace 
Who  rides  here  undismayed, — 

Knows  life  must  hold  the  citadel 
With  ready  shot  and  blade 

For  lurking  outlaw,  savage  guile, 
And  deadly  ambuscade. 

He  speeds  o'er  realms  that  seem  accurst 

By  some  malignant  ban, 
Where  savage  Nature  scorns  the  weak, 

And  leagued  with  savage  man, 

O  O  ' 


'HE  SPEEDS  O'ER  REALMS  THAT  SEEM  ACCURST" 


THE   DEVIL'S    WELL.  / 

Maintains  a  rigorous  reign,  and  he 
May  keep  his  life  who  can. 

Where  bleaching  bones  of  man  and  beast 
Mark  Slaughter's  cruel  sway, 

And  graveless  lie  the  fallen  dead 
To  feast  the  birds  of  prey, 

Or  mummy  there  in  desert  air 
And  grimly  waste  away. 

But  scathless  he  had  lived  and  fought 
Through  scenes  of  blood  and  woe, 

"While  one  ill-fated  brother  fell 
In  ambush  years  ago  ; 

The  other  roams  for  vengeance  yet, 
And  death  to  the  savage  foe. 

His  broncho  is  a  trusty  beast, 
That  ne'er  was  known  to  fail 

In  wind  or  speed  when  urgent  need 
Bade  flight  upon  the  trail ; 

Nor  ever  flinched  at  rifle-shot, 
Or  shied  at  sudden  assail. 


78  THE  DEVIL'S    WELL. 

And  all  her  rider's  will  she  knows, 
Each  word  and  touch  obeys ; 

Can  keep  the  trail  in  blackest  night 
Through  wild,  untravelled  ways 

And  shun  the  yucca's  bayonets, 
The  mesquite's  thorny  maze. 

The  giant  cacti  guard  him  round 
Like  warders  weird  and  grim, 

And  in  the  fading  light  afar 
On  yonder  western  rim, 

Loom  up  in  shadowy  shapes  that  lift 
Portentous  arms  to  him. 

He  marks  the  crescent  moon  go  down ; 

He  sees  the  northern  star 
Rise  o'er  the  verge,  and  lurid  gleams 

From  mountain  heights  afar 
Where  savages  by  camp-fires  brood 

On  deeds  of  death  and  war. 

So  speeds  he  on  while  sombre  Night 
Enfolds  the  mountains  higher 


THE  DEVIL'S    WELL,  79 

With  grateful  veil  till  all  is  gloom, 

Save  where  the  far-off  spire 
Of  lofty  Bab  'quivari  lifts 

A  finger-point  of  fire. 

Oh,  bless'd  is  night  that  brings  respite 

From  Sol's  consuming  glow, 
Where  ills  beset  the  traveller 

More  fell  than  savage  foe, 
And  never  the  precious  rain  may  fall, 

Nor  cooling  stream  may  flow  ! 

Yea,  bless'd  to  him  who  madly  rides 

Beneath  the  dark'ning  sky, 
To  cross  the  leagues  of  drouth  and  death 

That  yet  before  him  lie, 
With  eyes  aflame,  and  blistered  lips 

That  tell  of  the  canteen  dry ! 

Yet  forward  under  mortal  need 

And  duty's  high  demand, 
Beyond  the  solemn  noon  of  night 

He  rides  the  lonely  land, 


80  THE   DEVIL'S    WELL. 

Ringed  with  the  soundless  firmament 
And  silent  wastes  of  sand. 

And  now  he  reins  his  jaded  beast 

Lest  she  be  overdone, 
For  long  the  way,  and  desolate, 

Ere  yet  the  goal  be  won, 
And  man  and  horse  must  drink  or  fall 

Before  to-morrow's  sun. 

But  if  he  reads  the  land  aright, 
And  all  the  signs  that  guide, 

There  lies  a  pool  (of  evil  fame) 
Within  an  hour's  ride 

That  must  be  sought  and  found  to-nigh  t,- 
To-ni^ht  whate'er  betide  ! 

o 

Brief  time  he  halts  to  mark  his  course, 
Where,  looming  in  the  West, 

Grim  El  Diablo  cleaves  the  sky 
With  black,  serrated  crest, 

And  hides  the  darksome  Devil's  Well 
Within  his  rugged  breast. 


THE  DEVIL'S    WELL.  8 1 

A  pool  ill-omened  as  the  name 

By  desert  nomads  given, 
Yet  unto  many  a  hapless  soul 

A  thirst  and  frenzy-driven, 
That  black  lagoon  hath  proven  blest 

As  benison  from  heaven. 

But  oh  !  a  savage  cul  de  sac, 

As  desert  legends  tell ! 
Of  murder  foul  and  massacre, 

And  tortures  as  of  hell ; 
And  men  aver  a  savor  still 

Of  blood  is  in  the  Well ! 

Then  on  through  narrowing  defiles, 
Where  mighty  cliffs  hung  sheer 

Above  the  rough  and  rubbled  way 
He  pressed  in  hope  and  fear, 

Until  his  horse  with  sudden  neigh 
Announced  the  water  near. 

And  soon  within  embattled  buttes — 
The  birth  of  Vulcan  powers 


82  THE  DEVIL'S    WELL. 

That  ramparted  a  barren  swale 

With  splinter'd  walls  and  towers — 

He  found  the  pool  and  camped  thereby 
Until  the  morning  hours. 

A  bowlder  screened  him  from  the  wind 
That  through  the  basin  swept ; 

And  while  his  broncho,  tethered  near, 
Sole  guard  and  vigil  kept, 

And  cropped  the  scanty  grama  grass, 
Her  master  soundly  slept. 

Yet  waking  once,  he  heard  the  beast 

Thrice  whinny,  as  in  fear ; 
She  spied  some  hungry  wolf,  perchance, 

Or  puma  prowling  near, 
But  never  a  sound  of  danger  fell 

Upon  his  listening  ear. 

And  so  he  turned  to  sleep  again, 
As  one  would  turn  a  page  ; 

He  only  heard  the  night-wind's  low 
Susurrus  in  the  sage, 


THE  DEVILS    WELL.  83 

And  eerie  sounds  of  solitude 
There  voiced  from  age  to  age. 

And  such  the  power  of  habitude, 
When  need  and  suffering  ceased, 

Couched  there  within  the  sun-warm  sand, 
Unf earing  man  or  beast, 

He  slumbered  sound  as  a  cradled  babe 
Till  light  broke  from  the  East ; 

Then  'woke, — but*  not  as  sluggards  wake, 
With  yawn  and  drowsing  air ; — 

Like  warrior  on  the  battle  morn, 
Or  wild  beast  in  his  lair, 

He  springs  from  sleep  with  faculties 
Full-armed  to  do  and  dare. 

But  who  is  here  ? — what  presence  this 
That  greets  his  waking  sight  ? — 

A  stranger  at  the  Devil's  Well 
Hath  lodged  near  him  o'er  night, 

And  draped  and  huddled  grimly  sits 
Between  him  and  the  light ! 


84  THE  DEVIL'S  WELL. 

Sits  yonder  by  a  bowlder  braced, 
And  swathed  from  top  to  toe 

In  tattered  blanket,  void  of  sign 
To  mark  him  friend  or  foe, 

Nor  stirs, — it  is  the  wind  that  waves 
The  tatters  to  and  fro  ! 

Then  rose  the  scout  and  searchingly 
The  wrapt  intruder  scanned, 

And,  rifle  poised,  the  summons  sent — 
"  Ho,  stranger,  show  your  hand  !  " 

But  never  a  sign  the  stranger  gave 
To  menace  or  demand. 

Thereat,  advancing  warily, 

With  battle  in  his  eye, 
Again  he  cried  in  louder  voice — 

"  Speak  !  stranger,  or  you  die  !  " 
But  rigid  yet  the  stranger  sat 

Vouchsafing  no  reply. 

Then  to  the  muffled  shape  he  strode, 
The  wind-worn  blanket  raised  ; — 


A  STRANGER  AT  THE  DEVIL'S  WELL 


THE  DEVIL' S    WELL.  85 

There  sat  a  grim  and  shrivell'd  thing 
That  held  him  horror-dazed  !— 

A  semblance  of  himself  that  grew 
In  likeness  as  he  gazed  ! 

Ay  !  in  that  stark  cadaver  there 

So  shrunk  and  hollow-eyed, 
His  last,  lost  brother's  lineaments 

Too  surely  he  descried, 
Whose  battle  wounds  and  riven  scalp 

Bore  witness  how  he  died. 

But  hark !  strange  sounds  arise,  and  see — 

The  bristling  yuccas  stir  ! 
The  cacti  shake, — away  !  away  ! 

Mount  horse  and  drive  the  spur ! — 
The  red  fiends  rise  with  shot  and  yell, 

And  vengeful  arrows  whirr ! 

Like  hounded  panther  forth  he  sprang, — 

But  ah  !  e'en  while  he  slept, 
Strange  hands  had  cut  the  lariat, 

And  moccasin'd  foes  had  crept 


86  THE  DEVIL'S    W 'ELL. 

Between  him  and  escape,  and  now 
From  circling  ambush  leapt  ! 

Then  rose  his  courage  with  the  need, 

The  peril  instant  weighed, 
And  prone  behind  a  hammock  stretched, 

Such  stern  defence  essayed, 
That  death  flew  hotly  to  the  foe 

Around  his  barricade. 

In  vain,  brave  heart  ! — No  single  arm 
May  vanquish  a  hundred  foes  ! 

And  though  beneath  his  deadly  aim 
The  savage  life-blood  flows, 

From  every  rock  and  dune  he  sees 
The  merciless  circle  close  ! 

Then  rang  the  Apache  cry,  and  then, 

With  simultaneous  yell, 
Down  on  that  doomed  and  dauntless  man 

Like  famished  wolves  they  fell, 
And  half  a  hundred  eager  blades 

Drank  blood  at  the  fateful  Well ! 


THE  DEVIL'S    WELL.  87 


A  silence  falls  upon  the  hearth, 

And  shadows  darker  grow 
Where  yet  that  aged  mother  waits, 

In  piteous  hope  and  woe, 
The  three  brave  sons  who  left  her  heart 

Such  age-long  years  ago  ! 

Still,  day  by  day,  her  poor  old  eyes 
Peer  out  through  the  window-pane, 

To  watch  the  postman's  daily  round, — 
To  watch,  alas,  in  vain, 

For  tidings  of  the  lost  and  dead 
That  never  shall  come  again  ! 


INGERSOLL. 


*'  An  atJieist  Liugh  's  a  poor  exchange 
For  Deity  offended" — BURNS. 

What  doth  the  witty  giber  give, 

O  fellow-mortal,  unto  thee  ? 
Some  golden  rule  whereby  to  live  ? 

Some  anchor  in  futurity  ? 
Nay,  nay — not  his  the  power 
To  lighten  life  or  cheer  one  dying  hour  ! 

But  words  and  mockeries  are  his, 

In  lucre-seeking  widely  sown  ; 
He  saps  belief  with  subtleties, 

And  to  the  hungered  gives  a  stone ! 
O  soul,  not  of  the  scoffer 
Seek  thou  what  hope  and  faith  alone  can  offer ! 


FLIGHT  BEYOND  FAITH. 


Appalled  I  view  the  desolate  goal 
And  triumph  of  the  daring  soul, 

That  'round  his  barren  peak's  eternal  frost 
Soars,  eagle-like,  in  solitude  of  mind, 
Beyond  the  genial  faiths  of  all  his  kind, — 

To  man's  sublimest  hope  sublimely  lost ! 

Seek  ye  that  will,  in  wildering  flights, 
The  deities  of  Olympian  heights, 

Or  chase  the  phantom  lights  beyond  our  line  ; 
Enough  for  me  the  simple  joys  that  grace 
This  blest  and  bloomful  atom  hung  in  space, 

To  live  in  love,  and  die  in  hope  divine. 


DOUBT. 


O  Doubt,  thou  art  the  ruthless  robber-chief 
That  desolates  our  fanes  and  fairy  lands  ! 
That  murders  Hope,  and  with  remorseless 

hands 

Destroys  our  precious  hoardings  of  Belief, 
Which  but  for  thy  grim  wrack,  O  vandal  thief, 
Had  still  supplied  the    hunger'd    soul's  de 
mands  ! 
So   now,    like    travellers   whelm'd  in    desert 

sands, 

Bereft  our  blessed  solacements  of  grief, 
We  toil  forlorn  o'er  life's  unbeaconed  waste  ! 

Alas  !  the  riches  flown  we  may  regain  ; 
The  shattered  ship  may  haply  reach  the  shore; 
Lost  loves  and  friendships  all  may  be  replaced : 
But  one  lost  treasure  we  shall  mourn  in  vain, — • 
O  soul  !  thy  vanished  faith  returns  no  more  ! 

90 


THE  CREED  OF  HOPE. 


Why  question  ye  the  deathless  creed, 

So  sweet  to  all  our  mortal  need, 

So  blest  of  highest  thought  and  deed  ? 

Or  pridefully  in  judgment  sit 
On  this  and  that  of  Holy  Writ 
To  controvert  or  scoff  at  it  ? 

Oh,  bli^htin^  as  the  simoon's  breath 

/  o  o 

To  verdure  is  the  voice  that  saith 
The  final  goal  of  Life  is  Death  ! 

Woe  worth  the  Goth  that  would  destroy 
The  simple  faith — so  fraught  with  joy  ! — 
Of  childhood  in  its  tale  and  toy  ! 

Or  who  would  change  our  boon  to  bane 
With  bitter  "  Truth  " — pronouncing  vain 
Our  mortal  cry  to  live  again  ! 
91 


92  THE   CREED   OF  HOPE. 

Thy  vaunted  Truth  is  Dead  Sea  fruit ! 
Give  Faith  some  pledges  absolute 
In  her  despoilment,  or  be  mute. 

Can  Science  tell  us  of  the  soul  ? 
Nay — ask  the  darkly-delving  mole 
The  problems  of  the  Northern  Pole  ! 

Vain  hope,  alas,  that  e'er  her  scouts 
Shall  spy  our  future  whereabouts, 
And  certify  all  hopes  or  doubts  ! — 

That  e'er  her  quest  in  earth  and  sky 
Shall  bring  our  hearts  the  full  reply 
To  solace  and  to  satisfy  ! 

Life's  mysteries  lie  thick  about ; 

But  oh,  cast  not  contentment  out 

For  vain  half-knowledge,  harrowing  doubt ! 

Nor  madly  make  a  guide  of  one 

Who,  when  his  own  faith-light  is  gone, 

Cries  from  the  darkness — "  Follow  on  ! — 


THE   CREED   OF  HOPE.  93 

"  Your  systems  teem  with  wrong  and  ruth, 
And  false  your  faiths  and  creeds,  forsooth  ! 
But  follow  ;— I  have  found  The  Truth  ! " 

Nor  grope  with  the  materialist 

In  pseudo-scientific  mist 

To  prove  that  God  doth  not  exist ; — 

That  dumb,  insensate  forces  wrought 

Dead  matter  into  life  and  thought, 

And  marvellous  systems — meaning  nought ! 

Such  myope  only  followeth 

A  mockery  to  doubt  and  death  : 

But  farther-seeing  broadens  faith ; 

And  those  star-measuring  souls  that  soar 

Beyond  Orion's  glowing  core 

See  God  in  Nature,  more  and  more. 

He  learns  with  loss  who  scans  his  bliss 
Through  microscopes,  or  tests  a  kiss 
By  ultimate  analysis ; 


94  THE    CREED   OF  HOPE. 

What  gives  thee  joy,  and  stirs  the  blood 
And  seemeth  good — believe  it  good, 
Nor  doubt  till  all  be  understood. 

Could  ever  trilobite  foreken 

The  saurian,  or  such  creature,  then, 

Thro'  cycles  vast  see  apes  and  men, — 

Could  ever  embryo  foresee 

Its  far  evolvement — then  might  we 

Have  prescience  of  eternity,— 

Behold  through  crude,  incarnate  vision 
The  coming  marvels  of  transition, 
The  perfect  soul  and  life  elysian. 

Yet,  as  the  eaglet  in  his  cell 

Hath  dreamful  stirrings  that  foretell 

His  broader  life  beyond  the  shell, 

So  stirred  are  we  ;  and  so  we  say — 
Thus  far  we  fare  upon  the  way 
From  darkened  life  to  dawn  of  day. 


THE    CREED    OF  HOPE.  9$ 

How  oft,  bereft  of  blessed  sight, 
Men  walk  at  noon  in  titter  night, 
Unconscious  of  the  glorious  light ! 

The  suns  arise,  the  suns  descend, 
But,  void  the  sense  to  apprehend, 
Their  lives  are  sunless  to  the  end  ! 

So,  things  that  creep  may  ne'er  descry 
The  vistas  opening  to  the  eye 
And  farther  ken  of  things  that  fly. 

And  if  some  island-savage  stand 

Upon  his  sea-girt  rim  of  sand 

And  say :  "  There  is  no  other  land," — 

To  him  there  is  no  more  ; — to  him 
The  sea-world  stretches  vast  and  dim, 
And  ends  at  the  horizon  rim. 

His  universe  is  what  he  sees, — 
Scarce  wider  than  the  chimpanzee's, 
In  narrow  round  of  tropic  trees. 


96  THE    CREED   OF  HOPE. 

But  light  there  is,  though  men  may  grope 
In  darkness,  and  to  faith  and  hope, 
Fair  lands  beyond  the  visual  scope. 

If  from  mere  animalculum 

This  marvel  grew — O  Doubt,  be  dumb, 

Nor  idly  gauge  the  growth  to  come ! 

Nor  say,  in  Time's  eternal  flight 
We  cannot  rise  to  higher  height : 
The  powers  unknown  are  infinite  ! 

Since  Nature's  kindly  alchemy 
Restores  in  ways  we  cannot  see, 
The  fallen  leaf  unto  the  tree  ;— 

Since  germs  are  quicken'd  from  the  mire, 
And  lowly  life  hath  mounted  higher, 
O  Man,  why  may'st  thou  not  aspire  ! 


THE  GOSPEL  O'  GAMMON. 


ADDRESSED  TO  A  SOCIALISTIC  PREACHER. 


I  hear  ye  've  fought  an  unco'  fight 
Wi'  ghouls  that  strangle  Human  Right, 
Through  grewsome  shades  o'  doot  and  night, 

And  wrang  and  ruth, 
And  find,  at  last,  the  bleezing  light 

O'  blessed  Truth. 

In  sic  a  cause,  God  speed  ye,  sir, 
But,  bonnie  Truth — leuk  weel  at  her  [ 
For  mony  a  glaikit  worshipper, 

Syne  Adam  fell, 
Has  been  her  sole  discoverer— 

As  weel  's  yersel  ! 

And  och  !  she  's  proved  a  jinky  jade 
To  countless  devotees  betrayed  ! 

7  97 


98  THE   GOSPEL    O'  GAMMON. 

And  mony  a  tragic  escapade, 

And  hellish  clamor, 
WF  faggot-fire  and  bluidy  blade 

Attest  her  glamour  ! 

Ye  may  be  wise,  but  O  ye  ken, 

Fause  lights  hae  dazed  much  wiser  men  ! 

And  folk  assert — and  say  't  again — 

That  ye  're  pursuin' 
A  jack-o'-lantern  ower  the  fen 

O'  moral  ruin  ! 


But  is  it  true  ye  hae  the  plan 
To  equalize  your  brither  man,— 
End  a'  oppression,  social  ban, 

And  war  and  pillage, 
And  gie  to  each  his  bit  o'  Ian' 

For  peaceful  tillage  ? 

And  that  ye  merge  in  broader  faith 
The  narrow  creed  o'  Nazareth  ? — 
Proclaiming,  while  sic  want  and  skaith 
Puir  bodies  bear, 


THE   GOSPEL  O'  G'AMMON.  99 

We  needna  speer  ayont  the  breath 
Hoo  sauls  may  fare  ? 

If  true,  guid  sir,  it  is  the  chief 

O'  human  gospel  and  belief  ! 

Thraw  up  your  hats,  ilk  tramp  and  thief, 

For  creed  sae  canty  ! — 
The  Grace  o'  God  is  bread  and  beef, 

And  Heaven  is  Plenty  ! 

But,  sir,  sic  change  frae  auld  to  new 
May  close  the  pulpit  and  the  pew, 
And  ruin  a'  the  preacher  crew, 

I  Ve  sair  misgiving  ! 
And  what  will  puir  auld  Satan  do 

To  earn  his  living  ? 

Sad  thocht  to  grieve  and  gie  us  pain ! 

But  loss  is  aft  oor  highest  gain  ; 

And  when  the  De7il  perceives  hoo  vain 

His  auld  pursuit  is, 
Hech,  man  !  ye  baith  may  then  attain 

Mair  useful  duties  ! 


TOO  THE   GOSPEL   O'   GAMMON. 

Advice  is  aften  oot  o'  place, 

Yet,  here  's  a  bit  that  fits  the  case  : 

If  blether  could  redeem  the  race 

Your  power  is  ample  ; 
But  try  the  force  o'  Christian  grace, 

And  guid  example. 

Ye  rail  at  Wealth  wi'  fine  pretence, 
While  slave  yersel  to  carnal  sense  ; 
Ye  eat  the  food  of  Opulence, 

And  wear  his  raiment, 
But  frae  the  dole  o'  Indigence 

Exact  the  payment ! 

Ye  ne'er  hae  lightened  Labor's  ways, 
Nor  eased  Privation's  dreary  days 
Wi'  a'  this  reek  and  verbal  haze  ; 

But — De'il  ma  care  !— 
Ye  gain  what  Toil  to  Gammon  pays, 

If  uaething  inair  ! 

O  souls,  whase  lot  sae  unco  drear  is  ! 
Nae  Babble-jack's  ingenious  theories, 
And  theologic  whigmaleeries 


THE   GOSPEL   0'    GAMM&N. 


Can  gie  relief, 

Nor  hush  the  harrowing  misereres 
O'  Want  and  Grief  ! 

It  's  nae  in  law  to  mend  oor  greeds ; 
It  's  nae  in  catch-the-penny  creeds, — 
It  's  nae  in  braw,  new-fangled  breeds 

O'  priests  and  preachers, 
To  lift  frae  dool  and  grievous  needs 

Oor  fellow-creatures. 

Self-seeking  is  the  damning  blot 
Upon  our  happiness  and  lot, — 
The  ruling  sin  lang  syne  begot 

In  Adam's  fa' ; 
Ye  '11  find  it  in  the  peasant's  cot, 

As  weel  's  the  ha' ! 

And  this,  the  universal  shame, 
Begrimes  us  a'  wi'  equal  blame  : 
Sae,  let  us  scan  the  way  we  came, 

And,  faith  !  we  '11  find 
Reform  maun  rule  in  ilka  hame 

To  lift  mankind  ! 


PROGRESS— LIBERTY— DELUSION. 


O,  Progress !  thou  hast  bred  the  greed 
That  grasps  beyond  our  farthest  need, — 

,  Runs  riot  through  rich  heritages 
And  robs  the  Earth  of  future  seed  ! 

Thy  name  inspires  the  madding  host,— 
Its  shibboleth,  its  highest  boast ; 

And  round  the  world  the  battle  rages 
Of  Selfism,  to  the  uttermost. 

We  waste  the  lands  ;  we  delve  and  plan 
As  if,  forsooth,  our  little  span 

Must  compass  all  of  man's  achievement, 
And  nought  be  left  to  coming  man ! 

Yea,  in  the  name  of  Progress,  we 
Would  sweep  the  Earth  from  sea  to  sea 
As  with  a  locust  plague  and  ravage,— 
Despoiling  all  posterity  ! 


102 


PROGRESS— LIBER  T  Y—DEL  US/ON.  1 03 

And  in  the  name  of  Freedom — lo, 
The  bomb  and  dagger,  war  and  woe  ! 

Fawkes  lives  again, — the  hissing  fuses 
Threat  doom  alike  to  friend  and  foe  ! 

Peace  !  thou  whose  nature  seems  possest 
With  some  dread  spirit  of  unrest, — 

Whom  frenzy  leads,  or  base  ambition, 
To  strike  whatever  is  wisest,  best ; 

O  rager  at  the  common  lot, 

Who  prates  of  Right  and  knows  it  not, — 

Who  fires  the  evil  blood  of  nations 
With  serpent  tongue,  assassin  plot, — 

Know,  Leveller,  by  God's  decree 
While  e'er  an  Alp  o'er-tops  the  sea, 

Some  men  shall  serve  and  some  be  sovereign  -9 
The  kingly  soul  the  king  will  be. 

Ne'er  blight  him  with  thy  voice  malign 
Who  toils  content  in  field  or  mine ; 

Nor  quicken  in  him  the  restless  devil 
That  murders  Peace  in  hearts  like  thine  ! 


1 04  PROGRESS — LIBER  T  Y—DEL  USION. 

Nor  glorify  this  fevered  reign 
Of  freedom  thro'  our  fair  domain, 

Till  we  have  won  content  with  freedom, 
And  wrought  our  lives  to  higher  plane. 

Though  each  of  Nature's  bounty  shares, 
And  all  have  voice  in  State  affairs, 

A  fate  austere  adjusts  the  balance 
With  widening  duties,  wants,  and  cares  ! 

So  was  it  when  that  fateful  pen 
Proclaimed  our  helots  equal  men  ; — 

New  masters  rose  in  needs  despotic, 
And  forged  their  fetters  o'er  again. 

But  Freedom  still  (ye  cry)  is  fair, 
And  ills  that  follow  light  to  bear, 
Where  merit  wins  exalted  office, 
And  toiler  ranks  with  millionaire. 

Ay,  so  the  Sirens  sing  to  you 
From  Plymouth  Rock,  where  we  outgrew 
Old  bonds  and  fled  the  old  oppressors ; 
O  God,  that  we  could  flee  the  new ! 


PROGRESS — LIBER  T  Y—DEL  USION,  I  O$ 

What  boots  it  that  our  later  lords 

Rule  not  with  mailed  hands  and  swords  ? 

Still  thralls  are  we  of  venal  masters, 
Of  babble-craft  and  Mammon  hoards. 

Alas,  in  our  Utopian  West, 
Success  howe'er  attained  is  best ! 

An  arrant  knave  may  wear  the  ermine, 
And  office-honor  is  a  jest  ! 

Behold  the  want,  the  greedy  strife, 
The  office-hungry  harpies  rife, 

The  slaughters,  lynchings,  strikes  and  riots, 
The  scorn  of  law  and  human  life ! 

Wherefore  these  ills  that  Europe  knows— 
All  crimes,  all  Misery's  plaints  and  woes, — 

These  crowded  prisons,  thronged  asylums — 
If  human  weal  with  freedom  grows  ? 

Nay,  while  we  blare  on  every  wind 
The  fallacies  of  men  still  bind, 

And  cry  the  ballot-panacea 
For  all  the  ills  that  curse  our  kind, 


106  PROGRESS — LIBERTY—  DELUSION. 

The  baser  brood  of  equal  rule 
Degrades  the  family,  State,  and  school, 

Siuks  wise  authority  in  chaos, 
Exalts  the  ruffian,  rogue  and  fool ! 

O  peoples  reared  in  greater  stress, 
How  little  of  our  lives  ye  guess ! 

No  happier  we  with  larger  bounty, 
Nor  is  our  sum  of  suffering  less ! 

So  learn  with  us,  vexed  souls  afar— 
Who  deem  our  lot  your  guiding  star — 

That  happiness  is  not  conditioned 
On  what  we  have,  but  what  we  are. 

Beware  the  change  not  understood ; 
Beware  the  ills  in  miise  of  2rood  : — 

O  O  i 

The  verbal  guile  and  base  self-seeking 
That  prompt  to  violence,  hate,  and  blood ! 


HER  DAYS  OF  JOY. 


Ad  own  the  lane  with  beaming  eye 

She  hastens  at  the  school-bell  summons, — 

A  child-mind  in  a  form  well-nigh 
Full-statured  as  a  woman's. 

The  glow  of  youth  is  in  her  flesh  ; 

Her  cheeks  with  robust  health  are  redden'd ; 
She  looks  on  life  with  senses  fresh, 

And  feelings  all  undeaden'd. 

And,  as  when  in  a  theater 

On  fairy  scenes  the  curtain  rises, 
So  Nature  now  unveils  to  her 

New  pleasures  and  surprises  ; — 

Opes  wide  a  wondrous  world  to  view, 
As  roseate  as  a  morn  in  summer  ; 

And  all  seems  bright,  and  pure,  and  true 
To  this  entranced  new-comer  ! 
107 


108  HER  DA  YS  OF  JO  Y. 

Now  from  her  winsome  lips  the  song 
Of  inward  joy  spontaneous  bubbles  ; 

Now,  garrulous  with  a  weighty  throng 
Of  childish  thoughts  and  troubles, 

Holds  serious  parley  with  herself 

O'er  problems  grave ; — a  moment  after, 

With  hop-and-skip,  the  wayward  elf 
Peals  forth  her  merry  laughter  ! 

O  happy  girl  !  enjoy  thy  years 

Of  pleasance  in  this  vale  of  glamour  ! 

Long  be  thy  woes  but  April  tears 
And  puzzlements  of  grammar  ! 

And  heart-free  from  the  worldly  lore 
That  saddens  life  some  period  later, 

Be  thine  the  joys  that  bless  no  more 
The  wiser  and  the  greater ! 


FRANK  FORESTER. 


[Lines  written  in  a  copy  of  "The  Roman  Traitor,"  found  at  a 
solitary  miner's  cabin  in  Grouse  ravine,  Sierra,  California,  1881.] 

O  friend  of  yore,  long  lost  to  Life  and  Time  ! 
Whose  tragic  fate  in  manhood's  mellow  prime 
So  grieved  our  "hearts  ! — I  meet  thee  here  again 
In  this  strong-living  spirit  of  thy  pen  ! — 
Yea,  in  these  forest  solitudes  that  rise 
On  high  Sierras  to  Hesperian  skies, 
Hear  tuneful  ^Eolus  chanting  in  the  trees 

o 

Thy  own  beloved  "  Cedars'  "  symphonies, — 
As  when,  lang  syne,  in  peace  thou  didst  abide 
By  far  Passaic's  low-susurring  tide  ! 
For  Nature  speaks  upon  this  Western  verge, 
From  wood  and  mountain,  desert  sand  and  surge, 
With  self-same  voice  as  where  the  airs  of  morn 
Pipe  through  the  Orient  palms  and  day  is  born ; — 
Brings  unto  him  who  climbs  the  alpine  height, 

109 


HO  FRANK  FORESTER. 

Or  cleaves  with  humming  shrouds  the  polar 

night, — 

Who  sits  'neath  English  oaks,  or  lists  the  sound 
Of  canyon'd  Colorado's  gulf  profound — 
Some  message  from  the  ghostly  crypts  of  yore, 
Some  touch  of  home  and  loved  ones  seen  no  more ! 

I  tread  with  thee  the  forum  and  the  camp  ; 

Hear  clash  of  arms  and  legionaries'  tramp  ; 

See  in  a  Cicero  attributes  divine 

A  fiend  incarnate  in  a  Catiline, 

And  doughty  Romans,  famed  in  classic  story, 

Resurgent  rise  in  all  their  shame  or  glory  ! 

Through  generations  yet  thy  work  shall  plead 
Sweet  Virtue's  cause  to  all  who  rightly  read  ; 
Shall  show  how  joyless  all,  how  vile  and  vain 
The  lives  that  yield  to  Passion's  frenzied  reign  ; 
And  how — tho'  daring  Heaven  and  Hell  and 

Fate- 
Guilt  meets  his  doomful  Nemesis  soon  or  late  ! 

God  rest  thee,  friend  !  and  whatsoe'er  of  fault 
Thy  sad  life  knew,  rest  with  thee  in  the  vault ! 


ENCHANTMENT. 


Who  harbors  Love  within  his  breast, 

Though  born  to  toil  and  low  estate, 
Is  by  the  glamour  of  his  guest 
Beyond  the  rich  and  high-born  blest, 
And  greater  than  the  great. 

The  proud  distinctions  born  of  earth 
Are  levelled  at  the  rosy  shrine ; 

Love  knoweth  nought  of  caste  or  birth  ; 

Love  asketh  only  love  and  worth 
To  bless  with  gifts  divine  ! 

O  Love  can  ope  the  cottage  latch 

To  grander  realm  than  ancient  Rome  ! 
And  lift  the  lowly  roof  of  thatch 
With  subtle  sorcery,  till  it  match 
Saint  Peter's  mighty  dome  ! 


IN  ALTAS  SIERRAS. 


Once  more,  O  hills  sublime  ! 
For  blest  surcease  of  cares 
And  sweet,  inspiring  airs, 

Your  peaceful  heights  I  climb. 

Here,  from  the  haunts  of  men, — 
Out  from  the  rutted  lives 
And  marts  where  baseness  thrives, 

I  walk  tmthralled  again. 

My  lordly  pines  once  more 
Breathe  welcome  all  and  each, 
And  loving  arms  out-reach 

To  him  well  known  of  yore. 

Again,  prone  at  your  feet, 
I  list  the  airy  choirs 
Sing  in  your  vernal  spires 

Old  anthems  grand  and  sweet. 


112 


IN  ALT  AS   SIERRAS.  113 

And  O  !  ray  spirit  thrills 

With  far-off  sound  that  comes 
Like  roll  of  muffled  drums 

From  out  the  chasm'd  hills  ;— 

From  canyon  deeps  profound, 
From  gulch  and  river-bar, 
The  roar  comes  faint  and  far 

Of  waters  seaward  bound, — 

That  icy  bonds  let  loose 

To  toil  for  miner  hands 

In  golden  veins  and  sands, 
In  mill,  and  flume,  and  sluice, 

Till  flows  each  tawny  flood 

With  wreck  of  hills  replete, 

But  rich  in  future  wheat, — 
From  ravage  bearing  good. 

That  sound  hath  brought  again 
Through  Time's  encroaching  haze 
The  past,  supernal  days, 

When  life  was  young,  and  when, 


114  IN  ALTAS   SIERRAS. 

With  men  strong-limbed  and  bold, 
I  ranged  this  strange,  new  land 
To  win  with  venturous  hand 

The  Ages'  garner'd  gold  ;— 

What  time  the  camp-fires  gleamed 
On  bar  and  mountain  slope, 
And  all  with  mighty  hope 

Of  boundless  treasure  dreamed. 

How  sweet  the  simple  fare  ! 

How  sound  the  nightly  rest ! 

Was  ever  toil  so  blest, 
Or  life  so  free  from  care  ! 

And  when,  with  dam  and  wheel, 
We  laid  the  bed-rock  bare 
And  spied  the  treasure  there — 

How  rang  our  joyful  peal 

O'er  Yuba's  rushing  tide  ! 
Yea,  till  each  rocky  shore 
Out-voiced  his  ancient  roar, 

And  all  the  hills  replied  ! 


"HOW  RANG  OUR  JOYFUL  PEAL 


IN  ALT  AS   SIERRAS.  115 

O  peerless  days  no  more  ! 

O  mountains  throned  eternal ! 

0  forests  vast  and  vernal  !— 
Where  are  the  men  of  yore  ? — 

The  lion-hearted  band 
That  broke  this  solitude 
With  shout  and  ravage  rude, 

With  pick  and  axe  and  brand  ? 

"Gone  !  "  roars  the  yellow  river; 
"  Gone  !  "  sigh  the  hills  sublime, 
And  "  Gone  !  "  the  forests  chime, 

With  solemn  voice,  "  forever  !  " 

Here,  drowsing  in  the  copse, 

1  watch  the  dainty  quail 
Trip  shyly  o'er  the  trail 

With  timid  starts  and  stops ; 

Behold  the  startled  hare 

Rise  in  the  chaparral, — 

A  great-eyed  sentinel 
Demanding,  "  Who  goes  there  ? " 


Il6  IN  ALTAS   SIERRAS. 

And  search  with  baffled  sight 
The  azure  gulfs  of  sky, 
Whence  comes  the  guttural  cry 

Of  cranes  in  northward  flight,— 

That  to  the  pilot  bird 

Now  singly  make  response, 
Now  fanfare  all  at  once, 

As  if  his  note  had  stirred 

Some  common  memory  then, — 
Perchance  of  pleasures  shared 
When  last  they  met  and  paired 

By  Borean  lake  and  fen. 

As  higher  yet  I  climb — 
Lo,  mighty  hills  are  knolls  I 
And  all  the  land  unrolls 

In  billowy  leagues  sublime. 

The  forests  halt  and  fail, 

Save  where,  beyond  the  lines, 
Some  daring  picket  pines 

Creep  upward  to  assail 


IN  ALT  AS   SIERRA  S. 

The  citadels  of  frost ; 

And  now  a  hush  profound 
Engulfs  all  separate  sound, 

And  life  and  earth  seem  lost. 

In  solitude  alone, 

In  silence  most  intense, 
Breaks  on  the  soul  and  sense 

That  mighty  monotone 

Beyond  all  power  of  word. — 
The  deep,  eternal  bass 
Of  Nature  through  all  space, 

The  voice  of  cosmos  heard. 

I  stand  in  mute  amaze, 
And  reverent  eyes  upturn 
To  icy  peaks  that  burn 

Beneath  the  solar  blaze 

As  with  celestial  fires  ;— 

That  stand  like  gods  in  scorn 
Of  all  things  baser  born, 

And  all  earth-born  desires. 


1 8  IN  ALT  AS  SIERRAS, 

O  peaks  inajestical ! 

Speak  from  your  glorious  heights  ! 

Inspire  to  noble  flights 
Souls  prone  to  fail  and  fall, 

Until  they  soar  with  you 
From  all  the  moils  below, — 
Pure  as  your  driven  snow, 

In  heaven's  unsullied  blue  ! 


THE  FINAL  REBELLION. 


Fair  Earth  seenis  foul  with  weeds 
To  you,  alas,  whose  lives  are  narrowed  in  the 

gyves 
Of  stern  corporeal  needs  ! 

To  you  whose  prisoned  souls, 
As  with  a  web  of  fate,  strong-meshed  and  in 
tricate, 
Grim  Circumstance  controls. 

The  blessed  sunlight  gleams 
But  dimly  through  your  drear,  aberrant  atmos 
phere, 
As  in  distempered  dreams ; 

And  all  the  sweets  of  Earth — 
God's  bounty  unto  all — to  some  unfairly  fall 
Who  know  not  want  or  worth. 


120  THE  FINAL  REBELLION. 

On  you  no  fortune  waits 
With  gifts  not  earned  or  just; — 't  is  yours  to 

gnaw  the  crust 
Unknown  beside  her  gates ; 

Till,  haply,  strong  to  rise, 
Ye   breach  with  desp'rate  lance  the  walls   of 

Circumstance, 
And  grasp  her  chary  prize. 

But  though  ye  may  not  reach 
Good  Fortune's  rampart-wall, — though  hapless 

myriads  fall 
And  perish  in  the  breach,— 

Is  this  your  neighbor's  sin  ?— 
The  guilt  of  social  law  ?     Nay,  friend,  mayhap 

the  flaw 
Lies  nearer, — look  within  ! 

There  spy  th'  ignoble  bent 
That   rules   our   selfish  lives, — makes  Lazarus 

grown  to  Dives 
A  baser  malcontent. 


THE  FINAL   REBELLION.  121 

Not  he  who  lords  the  soil, 
But  luxury  and  taste,  false  want,  unthrift  and 

waste 
Keep  us  in  bonds  to  Toil. 

The  fault  is  mine  and  thine ; 
For  every  willing  hand  may  crop  the  liberal 

land 
Of  plenteous  bread  and  wine, 

But  too  gregarious  grown, 
And  warped  with  cultured  needs,  ambitions, 

habits,  greeds, 
To  nobler  life  unknown— 

We  turn  with  coward  hearts 
From  Labor's  peaceful  lines,  from  prairie-lands 

and  pines, 
To  moil  in  crowded  marts, 

And  rutted  channels  tread, 
Where  throngs  in  frantic  strife  are  narrowing 

hope  and  life 
To  Beggary's  dole  of  bread. 


122  THE  FINAL   REBELLION. 

Then,  stirred  by  evil  tongues — 
That  serve  but  to  incite  some  mad  crusade,  or 

right 
Some  wrong  with  greater  wrongs — 

» 

We  hail  the  reckless  rule 

Of    men   who   only   seek    to    prey   upon    the 
weak  * 

And  fatten  on  the  fool  ;— 

Who  sow  the  demon  seed 
Of  chaos,  claim  the  Earth  for  worthlessness  and 

worth 
By  equal  title-deed, 

And  prompt  unbridled  power 
To  raze  the  fabrics  wrought  through  centuries 

of  thought, 
In  some  phrenetic  hour. 

No  system  in  our  ken, — 

No  law,  can  make  us  wise,  or  just,  or  equalize 
The  diverse  moulds  of  men, 


THE   FINAL   REBELLION.  12$ 

Nor  lift  the  laggard  soul : 
He  who  would  rise  and  win  must  grow  the 

power  within, 
Or  miss  his  highest  goal. 

Equality  's  a  dream 
Whene'er  the  word  implies  none  o'er  the  mass 

shall  rise, 
No  man  may  be  supreme  ; 

For  his  is  all  our  gain, 
Whom  high,  peculiar  gifts,  fair  chance  or  fitness 

lifts 
Above  the  common  plane. 

When  men  from  lusts  are  free, 
And  none  distinction  seek, — when  Chimborazo's 

peak 
Is  levelled  to  the  sea, — 

When  toil  hath  equal  yield 
From  rich  and  barren  land,  and  all  the  wheat- 
ears  sta'nd 
Full-level  in  the  field,— 


124  THE  FINAL   REBELLION. 

Then  may  your  social  plan, 
O  babblers,  rule  the  Earth,  and  from  unequal 

worth 
Uplift  the  equal  man  ! 

But,  though  some  hands  still  reap 
What  other  hands  have  sown,  shall  all  be  over 
thrown 
And  toppled  to  the  deep  ? 

Nay,  though  we  splinter  thrones, 
Sweep  Earth  with  sword  and  flame,  we  change 

but  in  the  name 
Our  despots  and  our  drones. 

And  while  our  Sirens  sing 
The  lullaby  of  fools — lo  !  frantic  Demos  rules, 
Or  Croesus  is  the  king  ! 

Not  thus  shall  justice  come — 
Not  with  the  barricade  and  fratricidal  blade, 
With  dynamite  and  bomb ; 


THE  FINAL   REBELLION.  1 25 

Nor  shall  privation  cease 
While  swords  still  arbitrate,  and  reason  yields 

to  hate — 
For  Plenty  comes  of  Peace. 

Yet,  ours  the  rebel's  part : 
Up,  Rebels,  then,  and  smite  the  nearest  foes  of 

Eight 
That  lurk  in  eveiy  heart ! 

So  let  the  fight  begin, — 
Put  Self  and  Greed  to  rout,  then  shall  the  Earth 

without, 
Grow  fair  to  fair  within  ! 


IN  MEMOR1AM. 

[Capt.  Mathew  Webb,  the  famous  English  swimmer,  perished  in  the 
Whirlpool  Rapids,  Niagara,  July  24,  1883.] 

I. 

O  Niagara !  what  of  him— 
Sturdy-hearted,  strong  of  limb,— 

Who,  in  such  ill-fated  hour, 
For  a  transitory  glory, 
For  a  page  in  human  story, 

Dared  thy  power, 
And  through  raging  rapids  flying 
Rued  too  late  his  rash  defying  ? 

Nought  to  thee,  O  black  abhorrent, 
Pitiless  torrent, 

Is  the  Dead  within  thy  keeping ! 
Nor  the  breaking  hearts  in  Hull, 
Nor  the  tears  so  pitiful, 

Wife  and  little  ones  are  weeping ! 
126 


IN  MEMORIAM.  12; 

Nought  to  thee  the  pigmy  creatures 
That  for  profit,  fame,  or  pleasure, 
Come  to  view  thy  awful  features, 

Creep  around  thy  seething  edges, — 
Come  to  scan  thee  and  to  span  thee 
With  their  puny  human  measure 
From  the  battlemented  ledges  ! 

Nay,  though  direst  doom  had  huiTd 
All  the  millions  of  the  world 

Into  thy  abysm, 
And  a  universal  woe 
Wailed  to  Heaven  from  below,— 

Thou,  O  mighty  cataclysm, 
Still  wouldst  thunder  ! 
Shaking  all  above  and  under, — 
Stern  as  death  and  Nature's  forces, 
Void  of  mercies  and  remorses  ! 

n. 

Said  the  boatman,  with  a  quiver, 
As  he  held  his  dory  steady 


128  IN  MEMORIAM. 

On  that  mad,  tumultuous  river, 

For  the  swimmer,  stript  and  ready — 
(While  the  dory  shook  and  trembled 
With  a  terror  undissembled  !) 
Said  the  boatman  to  the  swimmer — 
And  his  eyes  grew  strangely  dimmer 

As  he  grasped  the  manly  hand — 
"  Give  it  up,  and  come  to  land  ! 
O  forego  this  mad  endeavor — 

O 

Think  of  children,  think  of  wife ! 
For  I  tell  thee  never,  never— 
Never  yet  passed  living  mortal 
Through  the  Whirlpool's  dreaded  portal 

Breathing  still  the  breath  of  life  ! " 


But  the  swimmer  shook  his  head, 
Sadly,  as  with  grave  misgiving ; 

— "  He  who  fears  will  fail"  he  said ; 

Pressed  the  hand  that  fain  had  stayed  him,- 

Plunged  from  human  power  to  aid  him, — 
Plunged  from  all  that  joys  the  living, 

To  oblivion  and  The  Dead ! 


IN  MEMORIAM.  12g 

III. 

Daring  swimmer,  madly  scorning 

Timely  warning, 

And  the  loving  heart  that  pleaded 

All  unheeded  !— 

In  that  last  supreme  endeavor, 

Ere  thine  eyes  were  closed  forever, — 

When  thy  limbs  were  in  the  toils, 
And  the  deadly  "Whirlpool  held  thee 

Like  a  python  in  its  coils, — 

With  the  vision  of  despair 
Through  the  fury-driven  foam — 

Didst  thou  see  an  empty  chair 
In  thy  far-off  English  home  ? — 
Did  thy  strong  heart  falter  then, 

Seeing  Love  awaiting  there 
One  who  ne'er  should  come  again  ? 

IV. 

Man  of  iron  thews  and  will, 
Stranger  to  fatigue  and  fear, 


MEMORIAM, 


All  thy  matchless  strength  and  skill 

Failed  thee  here  ! 
And  thy  story  shall  be  written,— 
"  He,  the  sturdy-hearted  Briton, 
Wlio  with  dolphins  might  have  sported, 
Or  consorted 

With  the  sea-born  Amphitrite— 
Goddess  mighty  !- 

He  who,  when  the  winds  made  frantic 
The  Atlantic, 

Swam  the  Channel  surges  over, 
Clear  from  Dover  — 
In  the  deathful  swirl  and  suction 
Of  thy  maelstrom,  O  Niagara, 
Met  destruction  !  " 


UTTERANCE  OF  THE  DESERT. 


If  thou  hast  heard, 

In  Arizonan  solitudes 
And  lonely  lands  uninastered  yet  of  man, 
The  eerie  swish  and  whisper  of  the  wind 

In  all  its  moods 

Through  sage  and  cereus,  till  thy  soul  was  stirred 
With  thought  of   Thought  ere  conscious  life 

began, 

And  glimpsed  the  gulf  Eternity  behind 
This  prideful  atom  and  his  little  span 
That  boasts  the  birth  and  boundary  of  mind, — 
Oh,  then  thy  spirit  caught 

The  voice  sublime 

Of  utmost  space  and  time, 
And  all  that  sound  may  syllable  to  thought ! 

•     And  haply  then — 

Far  gazing  o'er  the  desert  sands, 


132  UTTERANCE   OF   THE  DESERT. 

Where,  like  a  wraith  of  Hunger,  travel-sore 
The  lean  coyote  limps,  and  cacti  lift 

Their  wrinkled  hands— 
Thy  fancy  saw  this  deathful  realm  again 
Re-peopled  with  the  myriad  life  of  yore, — 
Heard  murmuring  multitudes  in  dune  and  drift 
Recount  the  tale  of  Time  for  evermore, 
Till  thou  didst  question, — Was  this  wondrous 

gift  ^ 
Of  mind  inborn  with  man  ? 

Or  did  it  live, 

A  formless  fugitive, — 
Free  tenant  of  the  void  since  time  began  ? 


THE  ETERNAL  SIEGE. 


Stern  war  is  waged  on  every  hand, 

All  round  the  world  on  reef  and  strand,- 

The  battle  of  the  Sea  and  Land. 

I  stood  at  night  where  evermore 
The  great  sea-dragons  rush  and  roar 
Snow-white  with  wrath  upon  the  shore, 

When,  from  the  turmoil  of  the  foes, 
And  thunder-shock  of  battle  blows, 
An  overmastering  voice  arose ; 

As  when  profoundest  forces  shake 

The  earth  till  mountains  roar  and  quake, 

Thus  to  the  Land  the  Ocean  spake : 

"  I  rage  within  thy  seaward  caves ; 
Thy  headlands  topple  to  my  waves ; 
Thy  islets  sink  in  briny  graves  ! 

133 


134  THE  ETERNAL   SIEGE. 

"  Behold  the  doomful  hieroglyphs 

My  surfs  unbridled  hippogriffs 

Are  carving  on  thy  crumbling  cliffs  ! " 

Then  from  a  vast  portentous  cloud, 
That  draped  the  hills  with  sable  shroud, 
A  Land- Voice  rumbled  hoarse  and  loud  : 

"  Vain  boaster,  cease  !  My  rampart  mocks 
Thy  rage  through  time  and  tempest  shocks ; 
The  centuries  scoff  thee  from  tne  rocks  ! 

"  These  fertile  fields, — yon  blooming  plain, 
That  waves  its  grateful  sea  of  grain, 
Are  risen  from  thy  dark  domain ; 

"  And  these  my  mountains,  that  of  yore 
Thou  didst  engulf  and  triumph  o'er, 
Defy  thee  now  for  evermore  ! 

"  O  robber  Sea,  thy  boast  is  brief  ! 
I  master  and  despoil  the  thief : 
Seest  thou  the  rising  coral-reef  ? 


THE  ETERNAL   SIEGE.  135 

"  There  all  thy  wrath  shall  die  in  cairns, 
Thy  thunders  yield  to  drowsy  psalms 
Of  tropic  airs  in  cocoa-palms  ! " 

The  Sea  (in  scorn) — "  Thy  hopes  are  vain 
As  his  whose  weak,  unbalanced  brain 
Outweighs  grave  loss  with  trivial  gain. 

"  Prate  not  of  centuries  to  me  ! 

Time  wields  no  sceptre  o'er  the  Sea ; — 

Go  babble  to  eternity  ! 

"  But  Time  is  wearing  thee  apace, — 
Yea,  I  behold  thee  shrink,  I  trace 
The  furrows  deep'ning  on  thy  face  ! 

"  O  dotard  ! — never  a  stream  may  now, 
Wind  blow,  drop  fall,  nor  flake  of  snow, 
But  leagues  with  me  to  lay  thee  low  ! 

"  Thus,  might  and  Nature  mark  thee  doomed  ! " 
Awhile  the  sullen  breakers  boomed 
Triumphant,  till  the  Land  resumed  : 


136  THE  ETERNAL   SIEGE. 

"  To  reason  with  the  passion-blind 
Is  vexing  to  the  balanced  mind, 
And  vain  as  buffeting  the  wind. 

"  Thou  wilt  discern,  when  rage  is  spent, 
Thy  leaguers  are  my  allies  sent 
To  build  the  future  continent. 

"  And  vain,  O  Sea,  thy  vaunted  might, 
Who  moves  subservient  day  and  nipfht — 
The  vassal  of  a  satellite  ! " 

As  if  a  thousand  cannon  spoke 

In  simultaneous  battle-stroke, 

The  thunder-shotted  answer  broke  : 

"  Peace,  slave  !  The  very  worms  that  crawl 
Upon  thee  hold  thee  basely  thrall 
But  dread  my  potence,  one  and  all; 

"  And  though  my  humor  it  may  please 
To  spare  thy  master-mite,  and  breeze 
His  cockle-fleets  o'er  friendly  seas, 


THE  ETERNAL   SIEGE.  1 37 

"  No  vassal  to  thy  lord  am  I ; 

Who  dares  my  sovereign  will  shall  die  !  " 

There  was  a  pause,  then  came  reply  : 

"  A  sovereign,  sooth  !  Thou  may'st  overwhelm 

Some  hapless  mariner  at  the  helm 

Who  trusts  him  to  thy  treacherous  realm ; 

"  But,  subject  to  the  Master-hand, 
The  mite  thou  scornest  holds  command 
As  suzerain  over  Sea  and  Land. 

u  And  though  thou  bury  him  from  sight 
In  sunless  caves  where  Death  and  Night 
Keep  vigil, — yet  in  thy  despite, 

"  And  Nature's,  he  shall  live,  I  wot, — 

Shall  rise  to  his  diviner  lot 

When  thou,  insensate  Sea,  art  not ! 

"  Yon  sea-less  orb  within  the  skies — 
Whose  image  on  thy  bosom  lies — 
Bids  thee  look  up,  reflect,  be  wise ; 


138  THE  ETERNAL   SIEGE. 

"  In  that  drear  moon,  O  Sea  !  behold 
Thy  own  predestined  fate  foretold 
When  this  fair  Earth  hath  waxen  cold 

"  Within  her  God-appointed  place, 
And  sunward  turns  her  shrivell'd  face — 
A  cinder'd  planet,  dead  in  space  ! 

"  Like  meagre  cup  to  thirsty  lips 
Thou  shalt  be  drained,  till  sunken  ships 
Uplift  their  spars  from  thy  eclipse  ! " 

There  fell  an  instant  hush,  as  when 

In  mortal  onset  warring  men 

Take  breath  for  life  or  death, — and  then 

A  terrible  turmoil  shook  the  Sea ; 

The  billows  rose  prodigiously 

And  hurled  their  hissing  spume  to  me. 

The  sea-mews,  skurrying  in  affright, 
Screamed  thro'  the  black,  tempestuous  night ; 
The  waves  o'ertopped  the  beacon -light. 


THE  ETERNAL   SIEGE.  139 

Then,  while  the  battle-din  rose  higher, 

I  fled  the  scene  <so  dread  and  dire, 

And  sought  my  peaceful  hearthstone  fire, 

In  faith  that  the  Almighty  Will 

Decrees  our  final  welfare  still 

Through  Nature's  utmost  wrack  and  ill ; 

And  walking  forth  at  dawn,  beheld 
The  foes  yet  warring  as  of  eld, 
Relentless,  and  with  wrath  unquell'd. 


ON  HEARING  A  DESERT  SONG-BIRD. 


O  desert  songster,  piping  clear  ! 

How  doth  thy  joyful  carol  cheer 

This  heart  that  fate  hath  banished  here  ! 

Such  song,  I  ween,  hath  rarely  stirred 
These  wastes,  that  erstwhile  only  heard 
The  croak  of  some  ill-boding  bird, 

Or  wolf-cry,  or  despairful  wail 

Of  winds  that  breathe  their  eerie  tale 

O'er  peak  and  bluff,  and  sandy  swale. 

O  friend  unseen  !  what  chance  or  choice 
Hath  brought  thee  here  with  dulcet  voice 
To  bid  the  wand'rer's  soul  rejoice  ? 

Art  thou,  poor  bird,  an  exile  too, 

From  fairer  lands  where  blossoms  grew  'I 

O 

From  loved  ones,  lost  to  heart  and  view  ? 
140 


ON  HEARING  A   DESERT  SONG-BIRD.          141 

Nay,  nay,  thine  is  a  kinder  fate 
Than  mine,  for  thou  dost  sing  elate, 
As  one  still  happy  with  his  mate  ! 

And  love  so  thrills  thy  little  breast, 
This  barren  realm  's  an  Eden  blest 
That  holds  thy  lowly  desert  nest ! 


HIS  EPITAPH: 

.   TOM  BLOSSOM,  OF  ARIZONA. 


O  mate,  that  roamed  with  me 
From  Shasta's  mighty  shadow 
To  where  the  Colorado 

Down-thunders  to  the  sea  !— 

Thou,  tried  as  men  are  tried 
In  regions  wild  and  sterile 
Who  meet  the  common  peril, 

By  courage  glorified, — 

Now  voiceless  as  the  dead  ! 

O  brave,  ill-fated  rover  ! 

If  life's  long  tramp  is  over, 
Be  this  above  thee  said  : 
142 


HIS  EPITAPH.  143 

"  Here  lieth  one  at  rest 

Who  paltered  not,  nor  quailed, 
Whatever  ills  assailed, 

But  bravely  did  his  best ; 

"  Who,  true  to  every  friend, 

Met  squarely  fate  and  foe, 

Met  frontward  every  blow 
Unflinching  to  the  end  ! 

:i  And  triumphs  o'er  the  past ; 
For  though  the  earthly  treasure 
Ne'er  blessed  him,  who  shall  measure 

The  prize  he  gains  at  last ! " 


NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE  YUBA. 


On  yon  Sierras'  high  embattled  crest, 

The  dying  Day  looks  fondly  from  the  west ; 

And  lo  !  the  rugged  buttes  in  glory  loom — 

Far,  blessed  isles  upon  a  sea  of  gloom, 

Whose   black   and   soundless    tide,   upwelling 

higher, 
Engulfs  anon  the  summit's  lingering  fire. 

Full  soon  the  rising  anthem  of  the  pines 
Drowns  all   the    stir   of   far-down   camps  and 

mines ; 

The  sharp,  assiduous  axe  is  stilled  at  last ; 
The  crash  of  timber  and  the  sullen  blast 
Shock  earth  no  more,  and  but  the  river  peals 
His  resonant  roar,  with  shriek  of  miners'  wheels. 
All  sounds  of  life  grow  fainter  with  the  light, 
Till  Nature's  voice  pervades  the  hush  of  night. 

144 


NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE  YUBA 


NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE    YUBA.  145 

Gleams    through    the    curtain'd   gulf   a  tawny 

thread, 

Where  brawls  the  Yuba  o'er  his  rocky  bed : 
The  solemn  diapason  of  his  flow 
Thus  rose  and  fell  ten  thousand  years  ago  ! — 
Nay,  through  undreamed  eternities  of  years, 
Resounded  thus  unheard  of  living  ears  ! 

O  Yuba !  who  shall  measure  thy  abyss 
With  gauge  of  Time  ? — declare  the  genesis 
Of  that  first  feeble  rill,  whose  gathering  force 
Carved  on  the  seaward  slope  thy  way  ward  course, 
Through  cycles  deepening  under  ceaseless  law 
By  flood  and  avalanche,  by  frost  and  thaw, 
Till  thus,  through  mountains  cleft  to  misty  deeps, 
Now  seen,  now  lost,  thy  sinuous  torrent  sweeps? 
Not  thou,  O  man  !  for  on  this  brink  sublime, 
One  pendulum  beat  counts  all  historic  time ; 
Here  shrinks  thy  day  and  record  unto  nought, 
Where  awful  Age  looms  visible  to  thought ! 

No  chance  catastrophe,  no  sudden  shock, 
Broke  way  through  these  abysmal  miles  of  rock ; 


10 


146  NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE   YUBA. 

Here  Nature  worked  in  calm,  majestic  ways, 
Nor  haste  nor  passion  knew,  nor  lapse  of  days. 
Her   seeming   wrath,    tho'    fraught    with    dire 

O  '  O 

distress, 

Is  fury  only  to  our  feebleness, 
That  broader  growth  in  knowledge  of  her  law 
Shall  make  benignant,  and  divest  of  awe. 
As  stern  as  we,  whose  casual  touch  and  breath 
Are  grewsouie  shocks  or  hurricanes  of  death 
To  tiny  creatures, — storms  calamitous 
To  life  unseen  as  Nature's  are  to  us. 
A  falling  leaf  destroys  the  spider's  bridge ; 
A  rain-drop  proves  a  maelstrom  to  a  midge, — 
Yea,  life  may  perish  if  a  zephyr  blow — 
Such  trifles  whelm  the  little  !  Even  so 
To  giant  beings  of  some  farther  sphere 
Might  seem  the  powers  that  most  appall  us  here. 

So  she  that  knows  not  Time,  with  patient  will 
Wrought  here  the  gorge  and  reared  the  mighty 

hill- 
Gnawed  down  by  age-long  inch  thy  rocky  bed, 
O  Yuba,  while  thy  torrent  seaward  sped ; 


NIGHT-FALL  O.V  THE   YUBA. 

Till,  from  the  stubborn  matrix  shattered  loose, 
A  stream  of  gold  bestrewed  thy  mighty  sluice, — 
The  last  residuum  holden  from  the  sea 
Of  comminuted  mountains  borne  through  thee ; 
A  gift  beyond  the  dream  of  Avarice 
From  lost,  primeval  ages  unto  this, 
And  spied  but  yesterday. — When  fled  thy  reign, 
O  Solitude  !  and  o'er  this  wild  domain — 
Where,  erstwhile,  sounds  of  elemental  war, 
The  land-slip's  thunder  and  the  torrent's  roar, 
The  scream  of  eagle  vaulting  down  the  sky, 
The  owl's  grave  note,  the  puma's  thrilling  cry, 
Alone  stirred  Echo  from  his  ancient  lair — 
Brake  suddenly  upon  the  startled  air, 
The  clamor  of  a  strange,  unwonted  strife, 
And  hither  flowed,  in  frenzied  streams  of  life, 
The  late-come  beings  that  overswarm  the  globe, 
Make  Nature  vassal  and  her  secrets  probe. 

Here,    where   the   mountain    buttress    grandly 

sweeps 

From  sunlit  summits  sheer  to  sunless  deeps ; — 
Where  skulks  the  grizzly,  and  the  hare  and  quail 


148  NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE   YUBA. 

Unf earing  haunt  the  seldom-trodden  trail, 
That  through  the  matted  manzanita  opes 
A  devious  way  to  higher,  bleaker  slopes ; — 
Where  evermore,  from  streams  and  forest-seas, 
Rise  solitude's  eternal  symphonies, — 
Scarp'd  in  the  lofty  ridge's  narrow  crest 
A  human  frame  hath  found  its  final  rest. 

Long  fallen  lies  the  rude-built  cairn  of  stone, 
By  winds  and  forest  prowlers  haply  strown  ; 
The  shattered  head-board  crumbles  in  decay  ; 
All  record  of  the  dead  hath  passed  away. 
Yet  he  may  live  in  memory ; — some  may  weep 
For  this  lone  tenant  of  the  weather'd  heap,— 
Reach  hands  imploring  toward  the  western  sun 
For  sign  of  him  ere  ebbing  life  be  done  ! 

Though  of  his  name  and  nation,  life  and  death, 
No  tongue  doth  tell,  no  record  answereth, 
Yet,  to  the  musing  eye  this  much  is  shown : 
He  was  a  man,  to  man's  full  stature  grown 
When  only  men  of  strong,  adventurous  mould 
Here  led  the  van  in  strenuous  quest  of  gold. 


NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE   YUBA.  149 

He  came,  perchance,  as  those  forerunners  came, 
To  spy  new  lands,  with  golden  dreams  aflame ; 
Perchance  enibitter'd  by  some  social  ban, 
Fled  here  to  Nature  from  his  fellow-man, 
And  in  the  strife  with  Nature,  or  in  strife 
With  man  more  stern,  untimely  closed  his  life. 

There  is  a  pathos  in  these  relics  here 
To  stir  the  spirit  and  invoke  a  tear ; 
For  kindly  Pity  turns  the  human  heart 
To  all  who  strive  and  fall,  and  lie  apart, 
In  ways  remote,  in  ocean's  sounding  caves, 
Beyond  humanity  in  lonely  graves  ! 
Oh,  not  yet  lost  to  us  are  ye  that  lie 
Beneath  the  sea  or  under  alien  sky  !— 
On  Mexic  plain,  in  deadly  Darien  swamp- 
In  desert  sands,  or  far  Nor- western  camp  ! 
Nor  you,   brave  hearts,  long  battling  for  the 

goal, 
Whose  icy  barrows  guard  the  fateful  Pole  ! 

But  sorrow  not  for  him  who  takes  his  rest 
So  grandly  urned  on  this  Sierran  crest ; 


150  NIGHT-FALL  ON  THE    YUBA. 

For  what  were  organ-peal  and  cannon-boom, 
The  pageantry  of  woe,  the  blazon'd  gloom 
Of  vaulted  abbey  and  imperial  tomb, 
Or  all  the  burial  pomp  the  great  secure, 
To  this  Unknown's  majestic  sepulture  ! 
Nay,  every  child  of  Nature  here  would  cry — 
As  thus  inurned  he  lieth,  let  me  lie, 
'Mid  hymning  pines,  and  vaulted  with  the  sky 

Day's  after-glow  departs  from  yonder  west, 
And  warns  away,  O  Dead,  thy  living  guest  ! 
The  far  lights  beckon,  and  he  takes  again 
The  downward  trail  to  travell'd  ways  of  men. 
Good-night  to  thee,  O  Nameless  of  the  height 
He  leaves  thee  here  to  Solitude  and  Night, — 
For  yet  life's  duties  call ;  when  these  are  o'er, 
He  would  return  and  journey  hence  no  more. 


THE    END. 


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